tiring efforts for three years, with those added of its secretary, Mrs. Rachel-Foster Avery of Philadelphia, and the splendid cooperation of the committee of Chicago women—Miss Frances E. Willard, Dr. Sarah Hackett Stevenson, Dr. Julia Holmes Smith, Mrs. Lydia Avery Coonley, Mrs. Elizabeth Boynton Harbert and Mrs. William Thayer Brown—is due the fact that this Congress was the most conspicuous success of any held during the Exposition, with the exception of the Parliament of Religions. It convened May 15, 1893, and continued one week, during which eighty-one meetings were held in the different rooms of the Art Palace. Twenty-seven countries and 126 organizations were represented by 528 delegates. According to official estimate the total attendance exceeded 150,000.[1]
Education: The law colleges never have been closed to women. Union College of Law was the first in the United States to graduate a woman, Mrs. Ada H. Kepley, in 1870.
Some of the medical schools are still bitterly opposed to admitting women. All the homeopathic colleges are open to them with the exception of the Chicago Homeopathic. At Harvey Medical College about half the students are women, and several of the full professorships are filled by them. Hahnemann College admits them but has no woman professor or instructor. In 1899 Dr. Julia Holmes Smith was elected dean of the National Medical College (Homeopathic) with no dissenting vote, and in 1900 she was re-elected. She is the only woman dean of a medical institution composed of both sexes. Women are received in the College of Physicians and Surgeons, which is the medical department of the State University. Rush College, one of the largest of the allopathic institutions, has just been opened to them. All of the colleges named above are in Chicago. Dr. Sarah Hackett Stevenson was the first woman admitted to the American Medical Association.
The theological schools generally are closed to women. They are admitted to the full courses of the Garrett Biblical Institute of the Northwestern University. Lombard University gives them the full privileges of its Divinity School (Universalist).
- ↑ Mrs. Sewall's report will be found in most public libraries. A graphic account of this Congress is contained in the Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony, Chap. XLI. See also present volume of this History, Chap. XIV.
