In 1874 Governor Carpenter appointed Mrs. Deborah Cattell a commissioner to investigate the alleged cruelty in the State Reform School at Eldora; and for this service she was paid the same as men who served on the same commission. Governor Gear appointed Dr. Abbie M. Cleaves delegate from Iowa to the National Conference of Charities and Correction, and to the National Association for the Protection of the Insane and the Prevention of Insanity, which was held in Cleveland, Ohio, July, 1880. Mrs. Mary Wright and Dr. Abbie Cleaves were commissioned to the conference of the same associations at Louisville, Ky., in 1883. The legislature of 1880 appointed Jane C. McKinney one of the trustees of the Hospital for the Insane, at Independence.
The eighteenth General Assembly, 1880, passed an act to extend to women the right to hold the office of county recorder. A bill giving them the right to hold the office of county auditor passed the House, but was lost in the Senate. Under the above law Miss Addie Hayden was elected recorder of Warren county by a majority of 397 votes. She ran on an independent ticket. Mrs. C. J. Hill was chosen recorder of Osceola county at the same election.
The instruction of the youth of Iowa has fallen largely into the hands of women. During the year 1879 the number of women employed as teachers was 13,579, while the number of men was 7,573. In the larger towns and cities women are almost exclusively engaged as teachers. Miss Phebe Ludlow, after having for several years acceptably discharged the duties of city superintendent of schools at Davenport, was elected professor of English language and literature in the State University at Iowa City. The chair is still occupied by a woman, as is that of instructor of mathematics and several other branches in that institution, which, to the honor of Iowa be it said, always opened its doors to both sexes alike.
The question of the eligibility of women to the office of county superintendent of public schools having arisen by the election of Miss Julia C. Addington in the autumn of 1869, the matter was referred to the attorney-general by the State superintendent of public instruction, and the following was his reply:
Hon. A. S. Kissell, Superintendent of Public Instruction:
Dear Sir: Rights and privileges of persons (citizens) are frequently extended but never abridged by implication. The soundness and wisdom of this rule of construction is, I believe, universally conceded. Two clauses of the constitution, only, contain express provisions excluding women from the rights and privileges in said provisions. 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 constitution 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 constitution 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.