Born on August 23, 1846, Belle Babb Mansfield moved to Mount Pleasant, known as “the Athens of Iowa,” in 1860. At Iowa Wesleyan University, she earned a B.A. in 1866, an M.A. in 1870, and an LL.D. in 1872. After beginning the study of law in 1867 in the Amblers & Babb Law Office on the Mount Pleasant Square and passing the Iowa Bar Exam in Henry County on June 15, 1869, she became in 1869 the first woman admitted to the Bar in the United States, overcoming legal obstacles with support from Mount Pleasant’s legal community; in 1893, the National League of Women Lawyers officially recognized her as the first woman admitted to a state bar. Although successful in studying law, she spent her professional life teaching, serving as Professor of English Literature at Iowa Wesleyan University from 1874 until 1885 and on the DePauw University faculty from 1886 until her death in 1911. An ardent supporter of women’s rights, she helped form the Iowa Women’s Suffrage Association and chaired Iowa’s first statewide Women’s Suffrage Convention in 1870 in Mount Pleasant, championing voting rights and equal educational opportunities for women. She is buried in Mount Pleasant’s Forest Home Cemetery.