WOMEN ON STATE BOARDS.
In New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Wisconsin there are women on the State Board of Charities.[[201]] In Pennsylvania, the board appoints women visitors to public institutions, and in Rhode Island the Governor appoints a board of women visitors to all institutions caring for women and girls. Massachusetts stands alone in the honor of having women on “Boards of Commissioners of Prisons.” This was inaugurated in 1880, and their gracious womanly influence is felt in all the institutions of the State.
In some other States women are coming to be recognized factors in these lines of work, and are cordially invited to fill places of trust. The Journal of Prison Discipline and Philanthropy, published by the Pennsylvania Prison Association, in its issue of 1886 says: “This society has profited largely by the recent admission of competent women into the acting committee. Their suggestions have proved of marked advantage, and with the time, intelligence, and high moral force they have given to the work, both in and out of the prison, there has been a gain which promises incalculable good.”