The latest local news, weather and high school sports from the Heartland - Powered by KTVO3

MT. PLEASANT, IA — A formal ceremony dedicating the Belle Babb Mansfield statue on the Iowa Wesleyan College Campus is scheduled for Friday, May 2 at 2:30pm. The public is invited to this event.
Iowa Wesleyan College trustees, former Iowa Governor and First Lady Tom and Christie Vilsack and sculptor Ben Victor will join local and national dignitaries and members of the Babb family in dedicating this impressive monument to the first woman licensed to practice law in the United States: Arabella “Belle” Babb Mansfield. The keynote speaker at the event will be Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, eldest child of Bobby and Ethel Kennedy and Maryland’s first female Lieutenant Governor.
Belle Babb Mansfield graduated from Iowa Wesleyan in 1866 and studied law with her brother and husband in the Union Building on the Mount Pleasant square. She passed the Bar exam and was admitted to the Bar on June 15, 1869. An ardent advocate for women’s rights, Belle was president of the first Iowa Women’s Enfranchisement Convention, held in Mount Pleasant in 1870. She had a successful career as an educator, teaching English literature at Iowa Wesleyan from 1874 to 1885, and joining the faculty of Indiana’s DePauw University from 1894 to 1911. She died August 1, 1911, and is buried at the Forest Home Cemetery in Mount Pleasant.
The statue of Belle Babb Mansfield is over nine feet tall, cast in bronze, and encircled by a concrete plaza. Bronze plaques embedded in the plaza give more information about Belle, her accomplishments, and the statue itself.
The statue will be on the east side of the main Iowa Wesleyan campus, easily seen from Broadway. The location was carefully chosen to give the monument excellent visibility and accessibility. Christie Vilsack, who chaired the Belle Babb Mansfield Project, said, “I want girls growing up here to know that women can do and be anything they choose...to know that this community has always nurtured women who achieve.”
The mission of Iowa Wesleyan College is to prepare students to succeed in a changing global environment. Iowa Wesleyan is a four year liberal arts college providing quality individualized learning experiences that combine the development of the intellect with adaptive life skills. The college is affiliated with the United Methodist Church with which it shares a commitment to spiritual values, social justice and human welfare.
Iowa Wesleyan College is the oldest private coeducational liberal arts college west of the Mississippi River. Founded in 1842, the College is the only four-year institution of higher education in southeast Iowa.