Social Economics, for the same exposition. Her election as vice-president of this jury made her eligible to membership in the Group Jury, on which she also served. This was a distinction conferred upon no other woman.
Occupations: All occupations were opened to women by a statute of 1873, which declared also that they should not be required to work on streets or roads or serve upon juries.
They were not allowed to practice law until 1872, Mrs. Myra W. Bradwell having been the first to make application in 1869.[1] Since that time ninety women have been admitted to the bar. Among those who have done noteworthy work is the daughter of Judge and Mrs. Bradwell, Mrs. Bessie Bradwell Helmer, who was chief editor of twenty volumes of the Appellate Court Reports and, since the death of her mother, has been president of the Chicago Legal News Company, which issues the principal law publications of the State.
Mrs. Catharine V. Waite published the Chicago Law Times for two years; Mrs. Marietta B. R. Shay wrote The Student’s Guide to Common Law Pleading; and Miss Ellen A. Martin organized the National Woman Lawyer’s League, and is its secretary. Women are members of the State and the Chicago Bar Associations and of the Chicago Law Institute.
The World’s Columbian Exposition, held in Chicago in 1893, opened large fields of usefulness and power to women. Those of Illinois were especially conspicuous in the wonderful work done by their sex during this World’s Fair. Its Board of Lady Managers was appointed under an Act of Congress to represent the special interests of women at the exposition, and Mrs. Bertha Honore Palmer was elected president. Mrs. Ellen M. Henrotin of Chicago was vice-president and active superintendent of the Woman’s Branch of the World’s Congress Auxiliary.
A complete official report of nearly 1,000 pages of the Congress of Representative Women, the greatest assemblage of women which ever had been held up to this date, was prepared by the Chairman of the Organization Committee, Mrs. May Wright Sewall of Indianapolis, who made several trips abroad in the interest of the Congress. To her great executive capacity and un-
- ↑ See History Woman Suffrage, Vol. II, p. 601.
