appointed "Preceptress of English and Latin and Lady Principal and Matron," making her a renowned teacher of English and Latin0. She was also the first African-American to teach at a Historically Black College or University (HBCU) and the only black woman to teach at an HBCU before the Civil War. Her brother, Rev. Lewis Woodson, was a trustee and founder of the college. It had been established in 1855 to educate black youth, as a collaboration between the white and black leaders of the Cincinnati Methodist conference and the AME Church in Ohio, respectively. Wilberforce closed for two years during the Civil War because of finances. It lost most of its nearly 200 subscription students at the beginning of the war, as they were mostly mixed-race children of wealthy planters from the South, who withdrew them at that time. During the war, the Cincinnati Methodist Conference could not offer its previous level of financial support, as it was called to care for soldiers and families. The AME Church purchased the college and reopened it in 1863; this was the first African-American owned and operated college. She also served as Lady Principal and Matron. She was later re-hired by the university in 1866 following a nearly one year closure because of the civil war. After the Civil War, in 1868, Woodson began teaching in a new school for black girls established by the Freedmen's Bureau in Hillsboro, North Carolina. Though millions of black Southerners began to move to the North after the Civil War to escape violence in the South, Woodson was determined to educate the children of the freedmen. She was not alone, as many Oberlin alumni of both races, due to the school's commitment to anti-slavery ideology and activism, acted on similar commitments. In 1888, Woodson Early was elected for a four-year term as national superintendent of the Colored Division of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. In 1893, Woodson spoke at the World's Congress of Representative Women in Chicago. Her speech was entitled "The Organized Efforts of the Colored Women of the South to Improve Their Condition." Woodson was one of five African-American women invited to speak at this event, along with: Fannie Barrier Williams, Anna Julia Cooper, Hallie Quinn Brown, and Fanny Jackson Coppin. Her career ended with her death at the age of 82 on August 15, 1907. Marriage and family On September 24, 1868, Woodson, then