Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 4.djvu/674

 Carbondale is a woman. Women have served as presidents of library boards in various places.

Women sit on the Board of Directors of the Illinois Farmers' Institute. One of the State Commissioners of Public Charities was a woman; but she resigned because of the introduction of politics into the board. A woman has served on the State Board of Health.

The Home for Juvenile Female Offenders was established in 1893. It is under the control of five trustees, two of whom are women. The superintendent also is a woman.

The Soldiers' Widows' Home was established by a law of 1895, which provided that of the five trustees three should be women and members of the State Woman's Relief Corps. The entire board is now composed of women.

Chicago has three women deputy factory inspectors, and formerly had a chief inspector, Mrs. Florence Kelley, who served four years with great ability.

Miss Jane Addams of Hull House was appointed garbage inspector of the nineteenth ward of Chicago by Mayor George B. Swift. She served one year and was succeeded by Miss Amanda Johnson, also a resident of Hull House. Under their care this ward, which had been one of the most neglected in the city, became famous for cleanliness and order.

Volunteer associations of women in Chicago did so much in this direction that some of their members finally took the civil service examinations for garbage inspectors or contractors and several received official positions. Among the most prominent of these is Mrs. A. Emmagene Paul, who superintends a large force of men in the first ward of Chicago. As this is a downtown ward it is one of the hardest in the city to keep clean, but she performs the work to the satisfaction of all except "gang", politicians, who have made every possible effort to have Mayor Carter Harrison remove her.

Mrs. Bertha Honore Palmer of Chicago was appointed United States Commissioner at the Paris Exposition of 1900 by President McKinley, the only woman distinguished by any government with so important a position. Miss Addams was appointed a member of the Jury of International Awards, Department of