Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 3.djvu/605

550 served parishes at different points in south-eastern Indiana until her death in 1878. Miss LeClerc frequently spoke at suffrage conventions, and called meetings wherever she preached, instructing the people in the philosophy of this reform.

To obtain accurate statistics as to the professions and industries is extremely difficult, as the year 1881 was the first in which the State considered women at all. That year the head of the bureau of statistics sent to each town and county commissioner certain sets of questions relative to women's occupations. The grace with which they were received, the seriousness with which they were considered, the consequent accuracy with which they were answered, may be inferred from the fact that one trustee replied, "The women in our county are mostly engaged in baby-tending," and that his response was generally copied by the press as a manifestation of brilliant wit. Although some commissioners felt their time too valuable to spend in gathering information relative to the work of women, from the reports of those who seriously undertook to canvass this matter, a table has been arranged and published, which, though incomplete, must be regarded, both in variety of occupations and in the numbers of women registered, as a most favorable showing for this Western State. The total number of women engaged outside of home, in non-domestic and money-making industries, is 15,122; the number of industries represented by them is 51. Add to these the number of teachers, and we have over 20,000 women in the trades and professions denied the ballot, that sole weapon pledged by a republic to every citizen for the protection of person and property.

Of the men and women prominent in this movement since 1860, whose names are not mentioned in the first volume, the one meriting the first place is beyond doubt Dr. R. T. Brown of Indianapolis. He has the longest record as an advocate of suffrage to be found in the State. As a speaker in the first Harrison campaign (1836) he advocated suffrage without regard to sex. Engaged as a teacher or inspector in the public schools in the early years, Dr. Brown argued the adaptation of women to the teacher's profession, and insisted that salaries should be independent of sex; and in many individual cases where he had authority, women secured this recognition before it was generally admitted even in theory to be just.

When, in 1855, the Northwestern Christian (now Butler) University was founded, Dr. Brown, as one of the trustees, advocated coëducation; in 1858 he took the chair of natural science, and in that branch taught classes of both sexes until 1871. In 1868 he was active in organizing the Indiana Medical College on the basis of equal rights to women, and filled the chair of chemistry until 1872; in 1873 he was appointed to the chair of physiology, which he held until 1877, and then resigned because the board of trustees determined to exclude women. This proves that Dr. Brown's devotion to the doctrine of equal rights is of that rare degree which will bear the crucial test of official and pecuniary sacrifice. He has been an active member of the State and city suffrage associations from the beginning.