from a third to half of the student body. The religious founders, especially evangelical theologian Charles Grandison Finney, saw women as morally superior to men. Oberlin ceased operating for seven months in 1839 and 1840 due to lack of funds, making it the second-oldest continuously operating coeducational liberal arts college in the United States.
Mahan, who was often in conflict with faculty, resigned his position as president in 1850. Replacing him was famed abolitionist and preacher Charles Grandison Finney, a professor at the college since its founding, who served until 1866. At the same time, the institute was renamed "Oberlin College", and in 1851 received a charter with that name. Under Finney's leadership, Oberlin's faculty and students increased their abolitionist activity. They participated with the townspeople in efforts to assist fugitive slaves on the Underground Railroad, where Oberlin was a stop, as well as to resist the Fugitive Slave Act. One historian called Oberlin "the town that started …
