Occupations: No profession or occupation is legally forbidden to women. Several are presidents of banks, a number are brokers, many are directors of corporations and there are women managers of countless enterprises.
Education: The two great universities, Cornell at Ithaca and Columbia in New York City, admit women to all departments and grant them the full degrees. In Cornell they recite in the same classes with the men students, and have the additional advantage of a residential hall on the campus. There are no women on the faculty. Dr. M. Carey Thomas, president of Bryn Mawr College, has been a member of the board of trustees for several years. The women undergraduates of Columbia have class-rooms and residence in Barnard, an independent corporation but an affiliated college, its dean having the same relation to Columbia as the heads of all the other colleges. The faculty is composed partly of the regular Columbia staff and partly of special professors, among whom are a number of women. The seniors attend certain courses in philosophy and science in the regular university classes, and all of these are open to post graduates. The University of New York, situated in and near the city, is co-educational in its post-graduate courses and in its Departments of Law, Pedagogy and Commerce. Its Law Department is celebrated for the prominent women it has graduated. Pratt Institute of Brooklyn is open to both sexes alike.
The Universities of Syracuse and Rochester are co-educational. The latter was opened in 1900 through the efforts of the women of the city in raising a fund of $50,000. The project would have failed, however, had it not been for the assistance of Miss Anthony. On the morning of the day when the limit would expire which had been fixed by the trustees for the raising of this sum, $8,000 were still lacking. Every possible source had been exhausted and in despair the women appealed to Miss Anthony, who already had collected and turned over a considerable amount. She set out with the wonderful determination which always has characterized her, and at 4 o'clock in the afternoon she went before the board of trustees with the full quota in checks and pledges, making herself responsible for the last $2,500.
Union Theological Seminary of New York City (Presbyterian) is one of the very few orthodox institutions of this kind which admit women.
The State is distinguished by having in Vassar the first of the great colleges for women which offer a course of study approximating that of the best universities. It was founded in 1861. Over 700 students are in attendance.
Besides seven large co-educational institutions there are eight or ten smaller ones for boys alone and several for girls alone.
In the public schools there are 5,405 men and 28,587 women teachers; in New York City 1,263 men and 10,949 women. The average annual salary for teachers in the cities outside of New York is $597; in that city, which employs one-third of the whole number, $1,035. The average annual salary in the commissioner districts is $322.49. There are women in Greater New York receiving $2,500; there are hundreds in the State receiving one-tenth of that sum. So far as it has been possible to secure an estimate there is fully as much discrepancy between men's and women's salaries for the same work as in other States.
The women of Greater New York take a prominent part in political campaigns. There are seven or eight Women's Republican Clubs, a Health Protective Association and a Woman's Municipal League which were active in 1897 when Seth Low, president of Columbia College, was candidate for mayor on the Reform ticket.[399] There is also a flourishing Ladies' Democratic Club.
A unique observance is the annual Pilgrim Mothers' Dinner at the renowned Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. This was instituted in December, 1892, by the New York City Suffrage League, Mrs. Lillie Devereux Blake, president, in memory of those noble women, who are apt to be overlooked at the celebrations in honor of the Pilgrim Fathers.