Oberlin's Women: A Legacy of Leadership & Activism

Betsy Mix Cowles

Betsy Mix Cowles (1810-1876, OC 1840) was an abolitionist, suffragette, and educator. She attended a local district school in her home state of Connecticut and later the Grand River Institute in Austinburg, Ohio before she began teaching. After studying infant schools in New York, she founded and ran an infant school for young children between 1832 and 1833 in Kinsman, Ohio. Infant schools eventually became known as kindergartens. Beginning in 1835 she served as the leader of and secretary for the Ashtabula County Female Anti-Slavery Society. Cowles was passionate about the anti-slavery movement and gave many speeches arguing for the abolition of slavery in the mid and late 1840s. She also fought against “Black laws,” that prohibited African Americans from voting.

After her father’s death in 1835, Cowles enrolled at Oberlin College, where she graduated in 1840. Upon her graduation she was made the first dean of women at the Grand River Institute between 1843 and 1848. In 1848 she began work as the principal and teacher of the female department of a grammar school in Massillon, Ohio and later as the superintendent of a girls’ grammar school in Canton, Ohio between 1850 and 1855.

Cowles was a strong supporter of women’s suffrage. In 1850 a Women’s Rights Convention was held in Salem, Ohio and Cowles presided over the convention. She attended the Akron Women’s Right Convention in 1851, where she spoke about the need for equal pay for working women. Cowles became a member of the Ohio Woman’s Rights Association in 1852. In 1857 she began working at the McNeely Normal School in Hopedale, Ohio. She retired in 1862, although she continued protesting against slavery during the Civil War.

Sources:
DeBlasio, Donna. “Betsy Mix Cowles papers.” Kent State University Special Collections & Archives. Last modified May 2020. https://www.library.kent.edu/special-collections-and-archives/betsy-mix-cowles-papers

Student File (Betsy Mix Cowles), Alumni & Development Records, O.C.A.

This page has paths:

This page references: