Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 3.djvu/313

 upon the right of women to hold the office of superintendent of schools.”

The Sixteenth General Assembly being in session promptly enacted the following law which settled the question:

In 1880 in Polk County, Mary A. Work was unanimously elected school director in Delaware township and soon after was chosen president of the school board. In 1885 the school board of the city of Des Moines elected Louisa M. Wilson to the office of superintendent of schools, at a salary of $1,800 a year. She had supervision over eighty teachers, two of whom were men principals of grade schools. The office of State Librarian in Iowa was filled by women from 1872 to 1898, and several women have been elected trustees of the various State institutions.

At the meeting of the Association for the Advancement of Women held at Des Moines in October, 1885, Dr. Jennie McCowen in her report for Iowa, said:

“An increasing number of women have been elected on school boards, and are serving as officers and county superintendents of schools. Last year six women served as presidents, thirty-five as secretaries and fifty as treasurers of school boards. Of the superintendents and principals of the graded schools about one in five is a woman; of county superintendents, one in nine; of teachers in normal institutes, one in three; of principals of secondary institutions of learning, one in three; of tutors and instructors in colleges, one in two; and in the twenty-three higher institutions of learning, thirteen young women are officiating as professors and in three of these colleges the secretary of the faculty is a woman. One of the State Board of Examiners, is Ella A. Hamilton of Des Moines. The ‘Northwestern Educational Journal’ is edited by a woman. The school of Domestic Economy at the State Agricultural College, is in charge of