In seventeen years but sixty-seven women (in twelve counties) have been appointed members of the Boards of Public Charities.
In 1899 a law was passed recognizing Accounting as a profession, and Miss Mary B. Niles is now a Certified Public Accountant and Auditor.
There have been women on the Civil Service Examining Board for nurses, matrons, etc., but there are none at present.
To Pennsylvania belongs the honor of appointing the first woman in a hospital for the insane with exclusive charge—Dr. Alice Bennett, Norristown Asylum, in 1880. Now all of the six State hospitals for the insane employ women physicians. In Philadelphia there are five hospitals under the exclusive control of women.
Women have entire charge of the female prisoners in the Philadelphia County jail. Police matrons are on duty at many of the station houses in cities of the first and second class, sixteen in Philadelphia.
Committees of women, officially appointed, visit all the public institutions of Philadelphia and Montgomery counties.
Dr. Frances C. Van Gasken served several years as health inspector, the only woman to fill such an office in Philadelphia.
Six women are employed as State factory inspectors and receive the same salary as the men inspectors.
Within the past ten years a large number of women have become city librarians through appointment by the Common Councils.
Mrs. Margaret Center Klingelsmith, LL.B., is librarian of the State University Law School, but has been refused admission to the Academy of Law (Bar Association) of Philadelphia, although there is a strong sentiment in her favor led by George E. Nitzsche, registrar of the Law School.