FOOTNOTES:
[454] The State Universities are closed to women only in Virginia, Georgia and Louisiana, and the undergraduate departments in North Carolina.
[455] The decision of the court was "When an intelligent, active, industrious, frugal woman finds she has married a man who, instead of coming up to the standard of a husband, is a mere dependent ... and leaves to her the support of the family, it would be contradictory of fact and an absurd construction of the law to say that he, and not she, is the head of the family."
This is believed to be the first legal decision of the kind and has created wide discussion.
CHAPTER LXIX.
WASHINGTON.[456]
The history of woman suffrage in Washington begins with the passage of a bill by the Legislature, giving women the full rights of the ballot on the same terms as men, which was approved Nov. 23, 1883, by the Territorial Governor, William A. Newell. This was due principally to the efforts of a few individuals, both men and women, as there was no organization.[457]
The municipal elections of the following spring brought the first opportunity to exercise the newly-acquired right. The women evinced their appreciation of it by casting 8,368 ballots out of the whole number of 34,000, and the leading papers testified to the widespread acknowledgment of the strength and moral uplift of their vote.