Olive Thompson Cowell (1887-1984) was an arts and music patron and educator in San Francisco, California. Cowell attended Barnard College and worked as an educator in California. Later she received an MA from the University of California, Berkeley. She founded the international relations department at San Francisco State University, where she taught until 1956. Married to Henry Clayton Blackwood Cowell, she was the stepmother to pianist Henry Cowell.