ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the lives of American woman Betsy Mix Cowles. The 1840s proved a critical decade for Cowles. Her two passions, abolition and education, came together, allowing her to establish herself as a leading Ohio reformer and a force to be reckoned with. The battles she fought provided her with experience and wisdom that would lead to the pinnacle of her career in the following decade. When Cowles graduated from Oberlin in 1840 at the age of thirty, most public schools in the West remained disorganized, and teachers were underpaid. Cowles eventually found a good position at the all-white Portsmouth Female Seminary in southern Ohio. Cowles boldly resisted the spirit of the Black Laws during her tenure at the Portsmouth Female Seminary. The repeal campaign that Cowles initiated in Massillon demonstrates how effectively she had combined teaching and antislavery in her life by the end of the 1840s.
