Yes, here is a fountain for our readers to identify today. Tell us where you think this fountain is located and you’ll be recognized as the Mystery Photo winner of the day! Send your ideas to Elliott@brack.net, and include your hometown.
Iowa native Matthew Holtcamp of Buford wrote of the last Mystery Photo: “You didn’t think I wouldn’t recognize a statue from my own hometown did you? I’ve walked by the statue of Belle Babb Mansfield for years on the Iowa Wesleyan College campus in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa. She taught at Iowa Wesleyan from 1874 to 1885 and is recognized in 1869 as the first woman admitted to the State Bar.” The photo came from Steward Woodward of Lawrenceville.
George Graf of Palmyra, Va. and Allan Peel of San Antonio, Tex. also aced the photo. Graf wrote: “Arabella Babb Mansfield was born on May 23, 1846 in Benton Township in Des Moines County, Iowa. Mansfield attended local schools and Howe’s Academy, where she began to develop her interest in law. She then enrolled in Iowa Wesleyan College in 1862 and started to call herself Arabella. She graduated in 1866 as valedictorian and began teaching political science, English, and history at Simpson College, which is Indianola, Iowa. It appears she returned to Mount Pleasant in 1867 where she started to study law at Ambers and Babb. In 1868, she married her high school sweetheart, John Mansfield, who was a professor at Iowa Wesleyan College. She joined the faculty and started teaching English and history. Over the course of the next year, they studied law together and both passed the bar exam in 1869.
“This was an unprecedented achievement for Mansfield, who earned a high score, since at the time only white men over the age of 21 could take the exam. Not everyone was ready to accept a woman lawyer and the status of her membership in the bar was taken to court. The court ruled in her favor, declaring that women and minorities had a right to practice law in Iowa.
“Despite becoming a lawyer, Mansfield never practiced law. She continued teaching at Iowa Wesleyan and also earned a master’s degree in 1870 and a law degree in 1872. She helped established the Iowa Woman Suffrage Society and became its first secretary. Throughout her career, Mansfield continued to support women’s voting rights and educational opportunities. In 1879, she and Miles started teaching at DePauw University (it was called Indiana Asbury University at that time) in Greencastle, Indiana. She remained there for the rest of her life. She was inducted into the Iowa Women’s Hall of Fame in 1980. She died on August 1, 1911.”
Peel adds: “The bronze statue, which depicts Mansfield reading a law book, was created by sculpture Benjamin Victor, a renowned artist who specializes in monumental representations of the human form. Victor is recognized as the youngest artist to ever have a sculpture installed in National Statuary Hall in Washington D.C.”
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