Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 3.djvu/312

 charges of cruelty in the State Reform School at Eldora. In 1876 Governor Kirkwood appointed Nancy R. Allen, a notary public; Mrs. Merrill a teacher and chaplain at the State penitentiary; Miss Dr. McCowen and Dr. Sara A. Pangborn on the staff of physicians at the State insane asylums. Governor Gear, in 1880, appointed Dr. Abbie M. Cleaves a delegate from Iowa to the National Conference of Charities and Correction and to the National Association for the Protection of the Insane; and the General Assembly elected Jane C. McKinney a trustee of the Insane Asylum at Independence. Governor Sherman appointed Mary H. Wright and Dr. Abbie Cleaves delegates to the National Association for the Prevention of Insanity, in 1883.

In 1880, the General Assembly passed an act to extend to women the right to hold the office of county recorder and the first woman elected under its provisions was Miss Addie Hayden of Warren County. Mrs. J. C. Hill was chosen recorder of Osceola County at the same election.

The question of the eligibility of women to hold office in Iowa was raised in 1869, in the case of Julia C. Addington, who had been elected county superintendent of schools. The case was referred to Attorney-General Henry O’Connor, who held that “there is no provision of law in Iowa preventing women from holding the office of superintendent of schools.” The question was again raised at the election of October, 1875, when Elizabeth S. Cooke was elected to the office of superintendent of schools in Warren County. Her competitor, a Mr. Huff, who was not elected, sought to procure the office by having women declared to be ineligible. He succeeded in procuring a decision of the District Court which declared that “the defendant, Miss Cooke, being a woman, was ineligible to the office.” The case was taken to the Supreme Court which reversed the decision of the lower Court, holding that “there is no constitutional