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 institutions where women are placed, but does not require them.
The Legislature of 1900 passed 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.
