A married woman may contract, sue and be sued and carry on business in her own name as if unmarried and her earnings are her sole and separate property.
In 1896 an act was pa.s.sed making it illegal for the husband to mortgage household goods without the wife"s signature. The same year it was made a misdemeanor and punishable as such for a man to desert a woman whom he married to escape prosecution for seduction.
The law declares the father and mother natural guardians and legally ent.i.tled to the custody of the minor children, but in practice the father has prior claim.
The support and education of the family are chargeable equally on the husband"s and the wife"s property.
In 1886 the "age of protection" for girls was raised from 10 to 13 years; and in 1896, on pet.i.tion of the Woman"s Christian Temperance Union, from 13 to 15 years. The penalty is imprisonment in the penitentiary for life or for any term of years not less than twenty.
An amendment was made in 1894 that "a man can not be convicted upon the testimony of the person injured unless she be corroborated by other evidence."
The same year this organization secured a law compelling the separation of men and women prisoners in county jails.
SUFFRAGE: Since 1894 the right of any citizen to vote at any city, town or school election, on the question of issuing any bonds for munic.i.p.al or school purposes, and for the purpose of borrowing money, or on the question of increasing the tax levy, shall not be denied or abridged on account of s.e.x.
At all elections where women may vote, no registration of women shall be required, separate ballots shall be furnished for the question on which they are ent.i.tled to vote, a separate ballot-box shall be provided in which all ballots cast by them shall be deposited, and a separate canva.s.s thereof made by the judges of the election, and the returns thereof shall show such vote.
OFFICE HOLDING: Women are not forbidden by law to hold any office except that of legislator.
In 1884 thirteen women were serving as county superintendents and ten as superintendents of city schools; six were presidents, thirty-five secretaries and fifty treasurers of school boards. In 1885 the school board of Des Moines elected a woman city superintendent at a salary of $1,800, with charge of eighty teachers, including two male princ.i.p.als.
In 1900 twenty-one women were elected county superintendents. A large number are acting as school trustees but it is impossible to get the exact figures.
The office of State librarian always was filled by a woman until 1898, when Gov. Leslie M. Shaw placed a man in charge. The librarian of the State University always has been a woman. There are two women on the Library Board of Des Moines.
Clerkships in the Legislature and in the executive offices are frequently given to women.
For six years Mrs. Anna Hepburn was recorder of Polk County, and this office has been held by women in other counties.
A law of 1892 requires cities of over 25,000 inhabitants to employ police matrons. They wear uniform and star and have the same authority as men on the force, with this difference in their appointment: The law makes it permanent and they can not be dismissed unless serious charges are proved against them.
A woman has been appointed a member of the Board of Examiners for the Law Department of the State University. For a number of years women have been sitting on the State boards of Charities and Reforms. They have served on the Board of Trustees of the Soldiers" Orphans" Home. A woman is on the State Board of Education, and another on the State Library Commission.
The law provides that women physicians may be employed in the State hospitals for the insane, but only two or three have been appointed.
The Board of Control may appoint a woman on the visiting committee for these asylums but this has not yet been done. A few women have served on this board.
The law also provides for women physicians in all State inst.i.tutions where women are placed, but does not require them.
The Legislature of 1900 pa.s.sed a bill to establish a Woman"s Industrial Reformatory of which the superintendent must be a woman.
The salary is $1,000 a year.
OCCUPATIONS: No profession or occupation is legally forbidden to women. In 1884 Iowa furnished, at Marion, what is believed to be the first instance of the election of a woman as president of a United States national bank.
EDUCATION: The universities and colleges, including the State Agricultural College, always have been co-educational.
In the public schools there are 5,855 men and 22,839 women teachers.
The average monthly salary of the men is $37.10; of the women, $31.45.
The women of Iowa have thrown themselves eagerly into the great club movement, and clubs literary, philanthropic, scientific and political abound. The State Federation numbers 300 of these with a membership of 12,000. This, however, does not include nearly all the women"s organizations.
By all the means at their command women are striving to fit themselves for whatever duties the future may have in store for them. With an unfaltering trust in the manhood of Iowa men, those who advocate suffrage are waiting--and working while they wait--for the time when men and women shall stand side by side in governmental as in all other vital matters.
FOOTNOTES:
[258] The History is indebted for this chapter to Mrs. Clara M. Richey of Des Moines, recording secretary of the State Equal Suffrage a.s.sociation.
[259] The _Woman"s Standard_ has continued to be a source of pride to Iowa women up to the present time, and is now edited by J. O.
Stevenson and published by Mrs. Sarah Ware Whitney.
[260] See Chapter XVII.
[261] The following have served as presidents, beginning with 1884: Mrs. Narcissa T. Bemis, Mrs. Margaret W. Campbell (four terms), Mrs.
Mary B. Welch, Mrs. Mary J. Coggeshall (two terms), Mrs. Estelle T.
Smith (two terms), Mrs. Rowena Stevens, Mrs. M. Lloyd Kennedy, Mrs.
Adelaide Ballard (two terms), Mrs. Evelyn H. Belden (three terms).
The officers at present are: Vice-president, Mrs. Dollie Romans Bradley; corresponding secretary, Mrs. Nellie Welsh Nelson; recording secretary, Mrs. Clara M. Richey; treasurer, Mrs. Mary J. Coggeshall; executive committee, Mrs. Anna H. Ankeny, Mrs. Emma C. Ladd, Miss Alice Priest; auditors, Mrs. Martha C. Callanan, Mrs. Ina Light Taylor; member national executive committee, Mrs. Margaret W.
Campbell; State organizer, Dr. Frances Woods.
[262] It is plainly impossible to mention the names of all or even a large part of the workers in a State where so much has been done. A few of the most prominent not already named are George W. Bemis; Mesdames Irene Adams, Virginia Branner, S. J. Cole, S. J. Cottrell, Mary E. Emsley, Clara F. Harkness, Julia Clark Hallam, Helen M.
Harriman, Etta S. Kirk, Alice S. Longley, Hannah Lecompte, Florence Maskrey, Emily Phillips, Martha A. Peck, Mettie Laub Romans, C. A.
Reynolds, Cordelia Sloughton, Roma W. Woods; Misses Daisy Deighton, Ella Moffatt, Katharine Pierce.
CHAPTER XL.
KANSAS.[263]
The first Woman"s Rights a.s.sociation was organized in Kansas in the spring of 1859, by a little coterie of twenty-five men and women, with the object of securing suffrage for women from the convention which was to meet in July to form a const.i.tution for Statehood. They did not succeed in this but to them is largely due its remarkably liberal provisions regarding women.[264]
Afterwards local suffrage societies were formed but there was no attempt to have a State a.s.sociation until 1884. In the winter of that year Mrs. Bertha H. Ellsworth was sent to the National Convention at Washington by the society of Lincoln, and she returned enthusiastic for organization. After some correspondence the first convention was called by Mrs. Hetta P. Mansfield, who had been appointed vice-president of Kansas by the National a.s.sociation, and it met in the Senate Chamber at Topeka, June 25. Mrs. Helen M. Gougar, who was making a lecture tour of the State, was invited to preside, and Mrs.
Anna C. Wait, president of the five-year-old society at Lincoln and for many years the strongest force behind the movement, acted as secretary.[265] Telegrams of greeting were received from Lucy Stone and Henry B. Blackwell, editors of the _Woman"s Journal_. At the evening meeting Mrs. Ellsworth recited an original poem and Mrs.
Gougar delivered a fine address to a large audience. Professor W. H.
Carruth, of the University of Kansas, a.s.sisted, coming as delegate from a flourishing suffrage society at Lawrence, of which Miss Sarah A. Brown was president and Mrs. Annie L. Diggs secretary. A const.i.tution was adopted and Mrs. Mansfield was elected president; Mrs. Wait, vice-president; Mrs. Ellsworth, corresponding secretary.
In the fall of 1884 Mrs. Ellsworth and Mrs. Clara B. Colby of Nebraska, made an extended lecture and organizing tour. At Salina they met and enlisted Mrs. Laura M. Johns, and then began the systematic work which rapidly brought Mrs. Johns to the front as the leader of the suffrage forces in Kansas. In addition to her great ability as an organizer, she is an unsurpa.s.sed manager of conventions, a forceful writer, an able speaker and a woman of winning personality.
On Jan. 15, 16, 1885, the State a.s.sociation held its annual meeting in Topeka, during the first week of the Legislature. Its chief business was to secure the introduction of a bill granting Munic.i.p.al Woman Suffrage, in which it succeeded. Mrs. Gougar was an inspiring figure throughout the convention, addressing a large audience in a.s.sembly Hall. A Committee on the Political Rights of Women was secured in the Lower House by a vote of 75 yeas, 45 nays, after a spirited contest.
One was refused in the Senate by a tie vote. Much interest and discussion among the members resulted and a favorable sentiment was created. Mrs. Wait was made president, Mrs. Johns, vice-president. A second convention was held this year in Salina, October 28, 29, with "Mother" Bickerd.y.k.e and Mrs. Colby as the princ.i.p.al speakers. A large amount of work was planned, all looking to the end of securing Munic.i.p.al Suffrage from the next Legislature.
During 1886 the State Woman"s Christian Temperance Union, under the presidency of Mrs. Fannie H. Rastall, zealously co-operated with the suffrage a.s.sociation in the effort for the Munic.i.p.al Franchise, Miss Amanda Way, Mrs. Sarah A. Thurston, Miss Olive P. Bray and many other able women making common cause with its legislative committee and working for the bill. About 9,000 suffrage doc.u.ments were distributed.
This autumn eleven conventions in the congressional districts of the State were held under the efficient management of Mrs. Johns and Mrs.
Wait, beginning at Leavenworth, October 4, 5, and following at Abilene, Lincoln, Florence, Hutchinson, Wichita, Anthony, Winfield, Independence, Fort Scott and Lawrence. Miss Susan B. Anthony, vice-president-at-large of the National a.s.sociation, Mrs. Colby and Mrs. Elizabeth Lyle Saxon of New Orleans, were the speakers. They were greeted by crowded houses, Miss Anthony especially receiving an ovation at every place visited.