Volume III Part 95 (1/2)

Section 1, of Article I., as to the right of suffrage, and Section 4, of Article III., which provides that members of the legislature must be free white male citizens. ”Free” and ”white” have lost their meaning (if the words in that use ever had any suitable or good meaning), but the word ”male”

still retains its full force and effect. If this express restriction exists in the const.i.tution as to any other office, it has escaped my notice. It is true that the words ”person” and ”citizen” frequently occur in other parts of the const.i.tution in connection with eligibility and qualification for office, and I fully admit that by usage--”time-honored usage,” if you will--these phrases have in common acceptation been taken to mean man in the masculine gender only, and to exclude woman. But a recent decision in the Court Exchequer, England, holding that the generic term ”man” includes woman also, indicates our progress from a crude barbarism to a better civilization.

The office of county superintendent was created by chapter 52 of the acts of the seventh General a.s.sembly, laws of 1868, pages 52-72. Neither in that act, nor in any subsequent legislation on the subject, have I been able to find any express provisions making male citizens.h.i.+p a test of eligibility for the place, or excluding women; and when I look over the duties to be performed by that officer--as I have with some care, and, I trust, not without interest--I deem it exceedingly fortunate for the cause of education in Iowa that there is no provision in the law preventing women from holding the office of county superintendent of common schools. I know that the p.r.o.noun ”he” is frequently used in different sections of the act, and referring to the officer; but, as stated above, this privilege of the citizen cannot be taken away or denied by intendment or implication; and women are citizens as well and as much as men.

I need scarcely add that, in my opinion, Miss Addington is eligible to the office to which she has been elected; that she will be ent.i.tled to her pay when she qualifies and discharges the duties of the office, and that her decisions on appeal, as well as all her official acts, will be legal and binding. It is perhaps proper to state that an opinion on this question, substantially in agreement with the present one, was sent from this office to a gentleman writing from Osage, in Mitch.e.l.l county, several weeks ago, which for some reason unknown to me, seems not to have been made public in the county. I have the honor to be, etc.,

HENRY O'CONNOR, _Attorney-General_.

Miss Addington, in her short letter of inquiry to the superintendent, has the following modest conclusion: ”The position is not one I should have chosen for myself, but since my friends have shown so much confidence in me, and many of them are desirous that I should accept the office, I feel inclined to gratify them, if it be found there is nothing incompatible in my doing so.”

The question of the eligibility of women to hold school offices was again raised at the October election of 1875. Miss Elizabeth S. Cooke was elected to the office of superintendent of common schools in Warren county. The question of her right to hold the office was carried by her opponent, Mr. Huff, to the District Court of that county, by appeal; and that court decided that the defendant, Miss Cooke, ”being a woman, was ineligible to the office.” It was then carried to the Supreme Court of the State, which held that ”there is no const.i.tutional inhibition upon the rights of women to hold the office of county superintendent.” In the meantime, however, and immediately following the decision of the Warren county judge, the General a.s.sembly, March 2, 1876, promptly came to the rescue and pa.s.sed the following act, almost unanimously:

SECTION 1. No person shall be deemed ineligible, by reason of s.e.x, to any school office in the State of Iowa.

SEC. 2. No person who may have been, or shall be, elected or appointed to the office of county superintendent of common schools, or director, in the State of Iowa, shall be deprived of office by reason of s.e.x.

Under the provisions of this law, and the above-cited decision of the Supreme Court, Miss Cooke was allowed to serve out her term of office without hindrance. Since that time women have been elected, and discharged the duties of county superintendent with great credit to themselves and advantage to the public. Women have also been elected to other school offices in different parts of the State. Mrs. Mary A. Work was unanimously elected sub-director in district No. 6, Delaware towns.h.i.+p, Polk county, in the spring of 1880; and soon after was made president of the board--the first woman, so far as known, to fill the position of president of a school board.

In 1877, in Frederica, Bremer county, Mrs. Mary Fisher attended the school meeting, and was elected as one of the three directors. The two others were men, one of whom immediately resigned, saying he would not hold office with a woman. His resignation was at once accepted. He further remarked that ”woman's place was _to hum_; she was out of her _spear_ to school _meetin's_, _holdin'_ office,” etc. Mrs. Fisher had been a teacher for six years. Mrs. s.h.i.+rley, another successful teacher, accompanied Mrs. Fisher to the next school meeting, and both ladies voted on all questions that came up for action, and nothing was said against their doing so.

This year (1885) the school board of Des Moines elected Mrs. Lou.

M. Wilson to the office of city superintendent of public schools, with a salary of $1,800 a year. She has in charge eighty teachers, among whom are two men in the position of princ.i.p.als.

At the woman's congress, held at Des Moines in October, 1885, Dr.

Jennie McCowen, in her report for this State, said:

An increasing number of women have been elected on school-boards, and are serving as officers and county superintendents of schools. Last year six women served as presidents, thirty-five as secretaries, and fifty as treasurers of school-boards. Of the superintendents and princ.i.p.als of graded schools about one in five is a woman; of county superintendents, one in nine; of teachers in normal inst.i.tutes, one in three; of princ.i.p.als of secondary inst.i.tutions of learning, one in three; of tutors and instructors in colleges, one in two; and in the twenty-three higher inst.i.tutions of learning, thirteen young women are officiating as professors, and in three of these colleges the secretary of the faculty is a woman. The State board of examiners has one woman--Miss Ella A. Hamilton of Des Moines--and the State superintendent of public instruction has for a number of years availed himself of the valued services of a woman for private secretary. The _Northwestern Educational Journal_ is edited by a woman. At the last meeting of the State Teachers' a.s.sociation a committee was appointed to prepare a regular course of reading for teachers. This course is mainly professional and literary, with a leaning toward the latter. A large number of these reading circles have already been organized, and much interest, and even enthusiasm, is being manifested by teachers in all parts of the State. The school of Domestic Economy, in connection with the Agricultural College, is in charge of a woman as dean, and, although but a year old, has made an auspicious beginning. A number of young ladies, graduates of the State University and other literary schools, have gone to the School of Domestic Economy to finish their education.

Iowa has many women engaged as journalists. Prominent among these is Miss Maggie VanPelt, city editor of the Dubuque _Times_. She conducts her department very ably, and acceptably to her readers.

Whether an advocate for suffrage or not, she is certainly a practical woman's rights woman. Independent and fearless, she goes about day and night where she pleases, and wherever her business calls her. A revolver, which she is known to carry, makes it safe for her to walk the street at all hours. Mrs. Will Hollingsworth, of the Sigourney _Review_, does a large part of the writing for that paper, and a.s.sists in the management of the establishment. _Woman's Hour_, edited by Mary J. Coggeshall, was published by women at Des Moines two seasons, during the exposition. Ten thousand copies were printed for free distribution, and a handsomely decorated department granted the society in the exposition for their work. Mrs. E. H. Hunter and Mrs. Woods represented the society. Mrs. Pauline Swaim is noted for her journalistic ability. Besides working on her husband's paper, the Oskaloosa _Herald_, she has done much for the _State Register_, reporting for it the proceedings of the Senate. In October, 1875, Nettie Sanford started a paper at Marshalltown, called _The Woman's Bureau_, which she published for two years.

During 1878 she published the _San Gabriel Valley News_, in California. Mrs. L. M. Latham for many years conducted a suffrage column in the Cedar Rapids _Times_; since 1884 she has been a.s.sociated with Mrs. J. L. Wilson on the _Transcript_, an eight column paper devoted to general news, temperance and woman suffrage. The paper is owned by Mrs. Wilson. Mrs. Nettie P. Fox edits the _Spiritual Offering_ at Ottumwa; Mrs. Hattie Campbell, a suffrage department in _The Advance_, at Des Moines; Mary Osborne edits the _Osceola Sentinel_, and is superintendent of the public schools of Clark county; Mrs. Lafayette Young is engaged on the _Atlantic Telegraph_. Very many papers in the State have women in charge of one or more columns.

In the humbler walks of literature Iowa can boast quite a number of women who have made successful attempts at authors.h.i.+p.[415] In sculpture Mrs. Harriet A. Ketcham, of Mt. Pleasant, deserves mention. She has the exclusive contract to model the prominent men of Iowa for the new capitol. Mrs. Estelle E. Vore, Mrs. Cora R. Fracker, and Miss Emma G. Holt, are known as musical composers.

Among the lecturers of Iowa, Mrs. Matilda Fletcher is worthy of mention. Though she has never made woman suffrage a specialty, she is sound on that question, and frequently introduces it incidentally in her lectures. In 1869 she was living in obscurity in Council Bluffs, her husband being employed as a teacher in one of the suburban schools. Young, girlish-looking, no one seeing her would have dreamed of her possessing the capabilities she has since displayed. She started out under many discouragements, but has shown a perseverance, a self-reliance, and an indomitable will that few women manifest in the same direction. Mrs. Fletcher has been employed by the Republican party during some of the most important and exciting campaigns, speaking throughout the State, in halls, tents, and in the open air. Every such effort on the part of woman is an advantage to the cause we advocate, bringing it nearer to final success. But it is to Mrs. Stanton, Miss Anthony, Anna d.i.c.kinson, Mrs. Livermore, and other lyceum lecturers[416] that our State is especially indebted for a knowledge of the true principles upon which woman founds her claim to equal civil and political rights with man. In all sections of our land their voices have been heard by interested and delighted audiences.

There are about one hundred and fifty women in the medical profession in the different cities of the State. Mrs. Yeomans, of Clinton, is a successful pract.i.tioner. Mrs. King, allopathist, and Mrs. Hortz, homeopathist, are regular graduates in good practice at Des Moines. Dr. Harding, electrician, and Dr. Hilton, allopathist, also graduates, have all the practice they can attend to in Council Bluffs. In 1883, Dr. Jennie McCowen was elected president of the Scott County Medical Society. This was the first time a woman was ever elected to that office in this State, if not in the United States.

It is quite sure that Iowa may justly claim the first woman in the profession of dentistry--Mrs. Lucy B. Hobbs, as early as 1863.[417] At Cresco there is the firm of Dr. L. F. & Mrs. M. E.

Abbott, dental surgeons. At Mt. Pleasant, Mrs. M. E. Hildreth is a licensed dentist in successful practice.

Rev. Augusta Chapin was, I think, the first woman to enter the sacred office in this State. Miss Safford, Algona; Mrs. Gillette, Knoxville; Mrs. M. A. Folsom, Marshalltown; Florence E. Kollock, Waverly; Mrs. M. J. Janes, Spencer; Mrs. Hartsough, Ft. Dodge, are regularly ordained preachers of the Universalist and Unitarian faiths. There are several licensed preachers of the M.

E. Church, but none have received regular ordination.

Iowa furnished the following women who went to the front as nurses during the war: Mrs. Harlan, wife of Senator Harlan; Mrs.

Almira Fales, Mrs. Anne Wittenmeyer, Miss Phebe Allen, Mrs.

Jerusha R. Small, Miss Melcena Elliott, Mrs. Arabella Tannehill.

These all did good service in hospital and on the field, and some of them laid down their lives as a sacrifice. We copy the following as one of the many facts of the war: