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 down-town 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 Social Economics, for the same exposition. Her election as vice-president of this jury made her eligible to membership in the Group Jury, on which she also served. This was a distinction conferred upon no other woman.
Occupations: All occupations were opened to women by a statute of 1873, which declared also that they should not be required to work on streets or roads or serve upon juries.
They were not allowed to practice law until 1872, Mrs. Myra W. Bradwell having been the first to make application in 1869.[246] Since that time ninety women have been admitted to the bar. Among those who have done noteworthy work is the daughter of Judge and Mrs. Bradwell, Mrs. Bessie Bradwell Helmer, who was chief editor of twenty volumes of the Appellate Court Reports and, since the death of her mother, has been president of the Chicago Legal News Company, which issues the principal law publications of the State.
Mrs. Catharine V. Waite published the Chicago Law Times for two years; Mrs. Marietta B. R. Shay wrote The Student's Guide to Common Law Pleading; and Miss Ellen A. Martin organized the National Woman Lawyer's League, and is its secretary. Women are members of the State and the Chicago Bar Associations and of the Chicago Law Institute.
The World's Columbian Exposition, held in Chicago in 1893, opened large fields of usefulness and power to women. Those of Illinois were especially conspicuous in the wonderful work done by their sex during this World's Fair. Its Board of Lady Managers was appointed under an Act of Congress to represent the special interests of women at the exposition, and Mrs. Bertha Honore Palmer was elected president. Mrs. Ellen M. Henrotin of Chicago was vice-president and active superintendent of the Woman's Branch of the World's Congress Auxiliary.