A Short History of Women's Rights · Chapter 20Notes:
This chapter is not translated yet. You are reading the original.
See an excellent article on "The American Woman" by Miss Ida M. Tarbell, in the American Magazine for April, 1910.
In 1893. "Be it resolved by the Second Legislature of the State of Wyoming:
"That the possession and exercise of suffrage by the women of Wyoming for the past quarter of a century has wrought no harm and has done great good in many ways; that it has largely aided in banishing crime, pauperism, and vice from this State, and that without any violent and oppressive legislation," etc.
Women in Colorado have been of greatest service in establishing the following laws:
1—Establishing a State Home for dependent children, three of the five members of the board to be women.
2—Requiring that at least three of the six members of the county visitors shall be women.
3—Making mothers joint guardians of their children with the fathers.
4—Raising the age of protection for girls to 18 years.
5—Establishing a State Industrial School for girls. There had long been one for boys, but the women could not get one for girls until they had the vote.
6—Removing the emblems from the Australian ballots. This is a little, indirect step toward educational qualifications for voting.
7—Establishing the indeterminate sentence for prisoners.
8—Requiring one physician on the board of the Insane Asylum to be a woman.
9—Establishing truant schools.
10—Making better provision for the care of the feeble-minded.
11—For tree preservation.
12—For the inspection of private eleemosynary institutions by the State Board of Charities.
13—Various steps toward prevention of cruelty to animals.
14—Providing that foreign life and accident insurance companies, when sued, must pay the costs.
15—Establishing a juvenile court.
16—Making education compulsory for all children between the ages of 8 and 16, except those who are ill or those who are 14 and have completed the eighth grade, or those whose parents need their help and support.
17—Making the mother and father joint heirs of a deceased child.
18—Providing for union high schools.
19—Establishing a State travelling library commission.
20—Providing that any person employing a child under 14 in any mine, mill, or factory be punished by imprisonment in addition to a fine.
21—Requiring the joint signature of the husband and wife to a mortgage of a homestead.
22—Forbidding the insuring of the lives of children under 10.
23—Forbidding children of 16 or under to work more than six hours a day in any mill, factory, or other occupation that may be unhealthful.
24—Making it a criminal offence to contribute to the delinquency of children—the parental responsibility act.
25—Making it a misdemeanour to fail to support aged or infirm parents.
26—Providing that no woman shall work more than eight hours a day at work requiring her to be on her feet.
27—Restricting the time for shooting doves.
28—Abolishing the binding out of girls committed to the Industrial School until the age of 21.
29—A pure food law in harmony with the national law.
In the Boston Herald for June 4, 1910.
Quoted in the New York Times of Jan. 9, 1910.
See, for example, Lyman Abbott in the Outlook for Feb. 19, 1910.
American Magazine, July, 1909.
History of European Morals, vol. ii, pp. 379 and following. New York, D. Appleton & Co., 1869.
Note, for example, that in Maryland a man can get a divorce if his wife has had sexual intercourse before marriage; but a wife cannot get a divorce from her husband if he has been guilty of the same thing. In Texas, adultery on the part of the wife entitles the husband to a divorce; but the wife can obtain divorce from her husband only if he has abandoned her and lived in adultery with another woman.
On Jan. 12, 1910, a bill was introduced in the House of Representatives to check the "White Slave Traffic" by providing a penalty of ten years' imprisonment and a fine of five thousand dollars for any one who engages in it.
In some it is even lower; ten in Georgia and Mississippi for example.
In Collier's Weekly, Feb. 5, 1910.
Note what the officers of the Chicago Juvenile Protective Association, many of whom are women, accomplished in 1909-1910. These women are fighting the agencies which make for juvenile crime mostly and each officer has a specified "beat" to patrol. Last year their work amounted to the following: