A complete official report of nearly 1,000 pages of the Congress of Representative Women, the greatest assemblage of women which ever had been held up to this date, was prepared by the Chairman of the Organization Committee, Mrs. May Wright Sewall of Indianapolis, who made several trips abroad in the interest of the Congress. To her great executive capacity and untiring efforts for three years, with those added of its secretary, Mrs. Rachel Foster Avery of Philadelphia, and the splendid co-operation of the committee of Chicago women—Miss Frances E. Willard. Dr. Sarah Hackett Stevenson, Dr. Julia Holmes Smith, Mrs. Lydia Avery Coonley, Mrs. Elizabeth Boynton Harbert and Mrs. William Thayer Brown—is due the fact that this Congress was the most conspicuous success of any held during the Exposition, with the exception of the Parliament of Religions. It convened May 15, 1893, and continued one week, during which eighty-one meetings were held in the different rooms of the Art Palace. Twenty-seven countries and 126 organizations were represented by 528 delegates. According to official estimate the total attendance exceeded 150,000.[247]
Education: The law colleges never have been closed to women. Union College of Law was the first in the United States to graduate a woman, Mrs. Ada H. Kepley, in 1870.
Some of the medical schools are still bitterly opposed to admitting women. All the homeopathic colleges are open to them with the exception of the Chicago Homeopathic. At Harvey Medical College about half the students are women, and several of the full professorships are filled by them. Hahnemann College admits them but has no woman professor or instructor. In 1899 Dr. Julia Holmes Smith was elected dean of the National Medical College (Homeopathic) with no dissenting vote, and in 1900 she was re-elected. She is the only woman dean of a medical institution composed of both sexes. Women are received in the College of Physicians and Surgeons, which is the medical department of the State University. Rush College, one of the largest of the allopathic institutions, has just been opened to them. All of the colleges named above are in Chicago. Dr. Sarah Hackett Stevenson was the first woman admitted to the American Medical Association.
The theological schools generally are closed to women. They are admitted to the full courses of the Garrett Biblical Institute of the Northwestern University. Lombard University gives them the full privileges of its Divinity School (Universalist). In 1898 the Chicago Union Theological Seminary (Congregationalist) opened its doors to them. They may also enter the theological department of Chicago University, but its circular of information says: "Women students receive no encouragement to become ministers."
The State University and all of the other large universities and colleges in Illinois are open to women, although some of the minor institutions are still closed.
There are in the public schools 6,973 men and 18,974 women teachers. The average monthly salary of the men is $60.42; of the women, $53.27. In the Chicago schools women receive the same pay as men for the same work, but the highly salaried positions are largely monopolized by men.
An incident which has no parallel deserves a place on these pages. In Chicago it was long the custom, whenever retrenchment of taxes became necessary, to cut down the salaries of the school teachers. In 1899 they could not get even what was legally due to them, and in 1900 the same condition prevailed.
Various reasons were given for the shortage of funds, but two of the teachers. Miss Margaret Haley and Miss Catharine Goggin, obtained information that the reason of the deficit was that some of the largest corporations in the State were not assessed for taxes. Without any backing they began an investigation. When proof positive was secured, through a long search of official records, they laid the case before the Teachers' Federation of 4,000 members, who authorized them to prosecute it to the end and supplied the necessary funds.
They went before the Board of Equalization with proofs that hundreds of millions of dollars of corporation property was not assessed for taxation; but the board refused absolutely to act. Then they filed a mandamus to compel it to do so, and brought the matter into the courts. Every legal, political and financial influence that could be secured in the State was used to fight these courageous women. They carried the case through the lower courts and into the Supreme Court, which confirmed their contention that these corporations should be taxed (Oct 24. 1901.)
The Union Traction Company and the Chicago Consolidated Traction Company, two of the greatest corporations which for years had been avoiding their legal taxes, applied to the United States Circuit Court for an injunction to restrain the State Board of Equalization from assessing them. They invoked the Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution, which says that private property shall not be taken without due process of law. The injunction was refused.