spared to persons without votes. For a number of years the two parties elected women as State Librarian, and they gave much satisfaction, although several times the political pressure has been so great that the office has had to be given to men.[1]
A number of times bills have been presented to require the Governor to put a representation of women on the boards of all State institutions where women and children are confined, but they never have been carried.
In 1873 the first State prison in the United States exclusively for women was opened in Indianapolis, but the management was vested in a board of men with a visiting board of women and a woman superintendent. In 1877 a bill was passed placing the entire management of this Woman's Reformatory in the hands of women. An Industrial School for Girls is now under the same supervision.[2]
In 1889 an act of the Legislature established the State Board of Charities and Corrections and provided that two of its six trustees should be women. It exercises supervision over the State penal and benevolent institutions. In 1899 a legislative act required that on petition of fifteen citizens of any county the Circuit Judge must appoint a board to exercise the same supervision over its institutions, to consist of four men and two women.
The only other women serving on State boards are one for the Soldiers' and Sailors' Orphans' Home at Knightstown and one for the Home for Feeble-minded Youth at Ft. Wayne.[3]
The State Board of Charities and Corrections has made great effort to secure women physicians at all State Institutions and, though there is no law authorizing it, there is now one at each of the four Hospitals for the Insane, and at the Woman's Prison and Girls' Industrial School. One was appointed for the Home for Feeble-minded but a man now holds the position.
Almost every State, county and city office has women depu-
- ↑ The women who have filled this office are Sarah A. Oren, 1873-75; Margaret F. Peelle, 1879-1881; Elizabeth O. Callis, 1881-1889; Mary A. Ahern, 1893-1895; Mrs, E. L. Davidson, 1895-1897. At present the first and second assistants are women.
- ↑ For particulars of this unique institution see Vol. III, p. 970.
- ↑ A Monograph on the Associated Work of Indiana Women, prepared in 1893 by Mrs. Ida Husted Harper for the Columbian Exposition, showed about twenty county and city orphans' home entirely controlled by women, and also a number of Homes for the Friendless, Old Ladies' Homes, Children's Aid Societies, etc.
