Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 3.djvu/311

 on year after year. New workers were continually swelling the ranks of the reformers; among the active advocates for the next ten years may be mentioned Amelia Bloomer, Margaret Campbell, a logical and brilliant speaker whose services were in demand from Maine to California, Elizabeth Boynton Harbert, Lizzie B. Reed, Caroline A. Ingham, Mary A. Work, Narcissa T. Bemis, Eliza H. Hunter, Mary J. Coggeshall, Jennie Wilson, Elizabeth Parker Gue, Adeline M. Swain, Amanda Stewart, Orilla M. James, Harriet G. Bellangee, Martha C. Callanan, Florence English, Ellen Armstrong, Angeline Allison, Mariana T. Folsom, all of whom served during a portion of this period as officers of the State Society.

Each year the society has kept open house in a building on the State Fair Grounds, during the annual exhibitions, where literature has been distributed and petitions presented to all visitors for signatures asking for the enactment of an equal suffrage amendment to the State Constitution.

The first woman appointed to a clerkship in a State office in Iowa was Linda M. Ramsey of Tipton, afterwards Mrs. Hartzell, an active suffrage worker; as early as 1864, Adjutant-General N. B. Baker appointed her one of his clerks where she served with marked efficiency for several years. Miss Augusta Mathews was employed by Governor Stone as a clerk in the Executive office a few years later. In 1870 Miss Mary E. Spencer of Clinton County was a candidate for engrossing clerk of the House of Representatives and was elected over her male competitors. She gave such satisfaction that each succeeding General Assembly has chosen women to some of the legislative offices. In 1871 Ada E. North was employed as a clerk in one of the State offices. In September, 1872, she was appointed by Governor Carpenter State Librarian and is believed to have been the first woman in America to hold a State office. In 1874 Governor Carpenter appointed Deborah Cattell a Commissioner to investigate