Owing to the turbulent political conditions in the General Assembly of 1900, the State association did not send its usual committee to the capital. However, a committee from the W. C. T. U. did go, and succeeded in securing an appropriation to build the young women's dormitory at the State College, receiving in this effort the encouragement of the E. R. A., as agreed upon at their convention of 1899.
The history of the State association would not be complete without recording its failures. In 1893 an effort to raise the "age of protection" for girls from 12 to 18 was made a part of its work. It was deemed expedient to place this in the hands of a special committee, Mrs. Thomas L. Jones and Mrs. Sarah G. Humphreys consenting to assume the arduous task. Mrs. Henry wrote a strong leaflet on the "age of protection," and Mrs. Humphreys sent many articles to the press. A petition was widely circulated and bore thousands of names when the ladies carried it to the General Assembly in 1894. They succeeded in having a bill introduced, and were given hearings before an appropriate committee; but the Assembly adjourned without acting. In 1895, Mrs. Martha R. Stockwell was added to the committee, which again went to the Assembly with the petition; but without success, and the "age of protection" still remains 12 years. The penalty is death or imprisonment for life.
By special statute the Common Law is retained which makes 12 years the legal age for a girl to marry.
A law to make mothers equal guardians with fathers of minor children is one to which the State association has devoted much attention, but which still waits on the future for success. At present the father is the legal guardian, and at his death may appoint one even for a child unborn. If the court appoints a guardian, the law (1894) requires that it "shall choose the father, or his testamentary appointee; then the mother if [still] unmarried, then next of kin, giving preference to the males."
The husband is expected to furnish the necessaries of life according to his condition, but if he has only his wages there is no law to punish him for non-support.
Suffrage: Kentucky was the first State in the Union to grant any form of suffrage to women by special statute, as its first School Law, passed in 1838, permitted widows in the country districts with children of school age to vote for trustees. In 1888 further extensions of School Suffrage were made and in the country districts, including fifth and sixth class cities, i. e., the smallest villages, any widow having a child of school age, and any widow or spinster having a ward of school age, may now vote for school trustees and district school taxes; also taxpaying widows and spinsters may vote for district school taxes.
In 1894 the General Assembly granted women the right to vote for members of the board of education on the same terms as men in the second-class cities, by a special clause in their charter. There are three of these—Covington, Newport and Lexington.[288]
In the one first-class city, Louisville, the five third-class and the twenty or more fourth-class cities, no woman has any vote.
Office Holding: In 1886 Mrs. Amanda T. Million was appointed to the office of county superintendent of public schools. Her husband had been elected in Madison County, but dying at the commencement of his term, Judge J. C. Chenault, after the eligibility of a woman had been ascertained, appointed the widow to fill out the year. Mrs. Million then became a candidate, and was elected for the remaining three years of the term, being the first woman in the State to fill that office. Her case attracted much attention and at the election in 1889 four women were elected county superintendents; in 1893, eight, and in 1897, eighteen.
In 1895 Mayor Henry T. Duncan appointed two women on the Lexington School Board, Mrs. Ida Withers Harrison and Mrs. Mary E. Lucas, to serve until their successors were elected under the laws of the new charter. In August the women held a mass meeting, conducted by a joint committee from the local E. R. A., the W. C. T. U. and the Woman's Club of Central Kentucky, to nominate a woman from each ward. They named Mrs. Harrison, Mrs. Ella Williamson, Mrs. Sarah West Marshal and Mrs. Mary C. Roark. This ticket was indorsed the same day by the Citizens' Association (of men). Judge Frank Bullock allowed private houses to be used for women to register, one in each precinct, the registration officers all to be women—clerk, two judges and a sheriff. They were sworn in and did their duty nobly. The Democratic and Republican parties refused to accept the Woman's Ticket. The women therefore selected a man from each ward in addition to the four women nominated, making the required number of eight, known as the Independent Ticket, which was triumphantly elected in November by voters of all parties and both sexes.