Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 6.djvu/10

 too low. In every State for a number of years the large organizations of women have made a determined effort to obtain better laws for women and children and Legislatures have yielded to pressure. In every State as soon as women were enfranchised there was improvement in laws relating to their welfare and that of children.

The Federal Woman Suffrage Amendment went into effect in August, 1920, and the following winter there was a greater amount of advanced legislation in the various States than had taken place in the preceding ten years collectively, and the résumé of existing laws that had been prepared for this volume was soon at least partially obsolete in many of them. A brief statement of Office Holding was incorporated but its only value was in showing that in all States this was almost exclusively limited to "electors.” When the Federal Amendment was proclaimed it carried with it eligibility to the offices. In some States it included Jury service but in others it was held that for this special legislation was necessary. In all States the professions and other occupations are open to women the same as to men. In the way of Education every State University admits women, and the vast majority of institutions of learning, except some of a religious character, are co-educational. A few of the large eastern universities still bar their doors but women have all needful opportunities for the higher education. Some professional schools — law, medicine and especially theology — are still closed to women but enough are open to them to satisfy the demand, and the same is true of the technical schools. To meet the lack of space every chapter had to be drastically cut after it was in type. Women now have in a general sense equality of rights, although in every State they have learned or will learn that this is not literally true and that further effort will be required, but now, as never before, they are equipped for accomplishing it. It will be a long time before they have equality of opportunity in the business and political world but for the majority this will not be needed. Women will find, however, that in the home, in club life and in all lines of religious, philanthropic, educational and civic work the possession of a vote has increased their influence and power beyond measure.