Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 4.djvu/638

 ter office. There are at present four or five women masters in chancery and twenty women notaries in the District.

It required six years of agitation and effort on the part of the suffrage association before women were allowed to serve as members on the Board of Public School Education. The principal movers in this work were Dr. Clara W. MacNaughton, Mrs. Thompson, Mrs. Helen Rand Tindall, Mrs. Lockwood and Mrs. Caroline E. Kent. During this time the bill passed through many vicissitudes and its friends became discouraged, but in 1894 Dr. MacNaughton went to work with a strong determination to secure its passage. Great assistance was rendered by Senator McMillan and the Hon. Edwin F. Uhl, at that time Assistant Secretary of State. The bill was finally passed just before Congress adjourned for that year. The school board, which has charge of both white and colored schools, consists of five members, each with a salary of $500 a year. Mrs. Mary C. Terrill (colored) served five years and resigned. She was succeeded by Mrs. Betty G. Francis (colored). Mrs. Mary Hope West (white) is the other woman member. A woman is serving as assistant superintendent of the public schools, receiving $2,500 per annum; and a woman is employed as assistant secretary of the Board of Education.

Women sit on the Hospital Boards and those of Public Charities. It never has been possible to secure the appointment of women physicians at any of the hospitals or asylums.

As women are admitted to the various Government Departments there naturally would be more of them holding office in the District of Columbia than in all the States combined. The relative number of men and women employed is as follows: