organized struggle for political freedom, having started in 1848,
but they were among the last to win. This was in part due to the
U.S. Constitution, which can only be amended by a two-thirds
majority in both chambers of Congress, and even then the amend-
ment does not become operative until it has been ratified by
three-fourths of the 48 states. American suffragists used to say
to friends in Europe, " You have to convert one Parliament:
we have to convert at least 37 Parliaments." The suffragists
worked state by state until there were some 20 suffrage states.
The greatest victory thus gained was that in the state of New
York in 191 7, after America had joined in the war. To win in the
" Empire " state was a turning point in the whole struggle. After
this, ultimate victory was certain, and the suffragists concentrated
on carrying suffrage by constitutional amendment. Theodore
Roosevelt in 1912 was the first important presidential candidate
who supported woman suffrage. In 1916 and 1920 all the presi-
dential candidates were suffragists. President Wilson during his
second term aided the movement by taking the unprecedented
course of himself twice urging the Federal amendment upon the
attention of Congress. The necessary two-thirds majority was
secured in the House of Representatives in Jan. 1918, but there
was not a single vote to spare, and the narrow margin weakened
the position, especially as the Senate had yet to be won ; but in
May 1919 the amendment was again brought up in the House
and was carried by 304 to 48; and victory in the Senate followed
almost immediately. Then came the battle for ratification in 36
states. The first stages were easy and rapid, i r states giving a
unanimous vote in both Houses, and seven more in one or other
of their chambers. After this the victories came more slowly
until, in May 1920, 35 states had ratified and only one more was
needed. The issue was much obscured by the impending presi-
dential election. Both candidates were, as in 1916, suffragists.
Both parties probably believed they would gain an advantage if
they could plausibly claim that their efforts had given the final
victory to women. Tennessee, a Democratic state, voted for the
amendment by the necessary majorities in Aug. 1920; legal ob-
jections to its validity were, however, raised, but not in time to
prevent the proclamation by the Secretary of State in Washington
that the igth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution had been
carried. The legal points, however, awaited decision in the High
Court. This gave an opportunity for a Republican state, Connec-
ticut, to come to the rescue; a special session was called and the
igth Amendment was ratified on Sept. 21 1920. This made the
Tennessee objections negligible for, valid or invalid, the 36th
state had now ratified and the following article was added to the
Constitution: " The right of citizens of the United States shall
not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on
account of sex." Thus after a struggle of 70 years the women's
victory in America was completed.
OTHER COUNTRIES
Before the World War there were only four countries in the
world where women exercised the political franchise; by the end
of 1920 there were 28 namely, the United Kingdom, Canada,
Australia, New Zealand, British East Africa, Rhodesia, Jamaica,
Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, Holland, Rumania,
Serbia, Luxemburg, Germany, Austria, Hungary, the United
States; and, among the states newly formed by the peace treaties
of 1919, Poland, Esthonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Czechoslovakia,
the Ukraine and Palestine.
The charter of the League of Nations contains a clause render-
ing women eligible for all appointments, including the secretariat.
This clause did not remain a dead letter. Besides a large number
of women in less responsible positions, Dame Rachel Crowdy
was made Director of the Section of National Health, to deal
with the white-slave and opium traffic and with the anti-typhus
campaign. At the first assembly of the League (Geneva Nov.,
Dec. 1920) Sweden appointed Mrs. Wicksell and Norway Dr.
Kristine Bonnevie as alternate representatives of their respective
countries; while Miss Forchhammer of Denmark brought for-
ward in the full assembly the subject of the white-slave traffic and
was successful in carrying her proposal to appoint a commission
of three persons, one of whom must be a woman, to prosecute a
special inquiry on the subject in the Near East. Miss Sophie
Sanger was made head of the Legal Section of the International
Labour Bureau. In Jan. 1921 Mrs. Wicksell was appointed a
member of the Permanent Mandates Commission.
In seeking a cause for so great a development of principles
for which comparatively small groups of women, without
any direct political power, had worked in some countries for
more than half a century, it may probably be found in one cir-
cumstance common to them all. In each country a national
crisis had arisen on the issue of which the whole fate of the nation
depended. National feeling in each had been stirred to its utmost
depths. Under its pressure class feeling was minimized; all sorts
and conditions of men and women had worked and suffered to-
gether for what each felt to be a cause of supreme importance.
Men and women acted as friends and comrades when the issue was
uncertain, and when the end came the men did not forget the
work and the sacrifices of the women. In all countries, whether
victors or vanquished, it was universally acknowledged that all
through the anguish of the war the women had not been backward
either in self-sacrifice, courage or capacity. It was this feeling
which broke down the opposition to women's votes in nearly all
the warring nations. It was felt also that men by themselves, as
a well-known journalist expressed it, had made a mess of the
world and needed helpers; men and women together being gener-
ally more successful than either men or women by themselves.
AUTHORITIES. M. G. Fawcett, Women's Suffrage (1911); M. G.
Fawcett, The Woman's Victory and After (1920); E. Sylvia Pank-
hurst, The Suffragette (1910); the files of the Common Cause, now
Woman's Leader, and of the International Suffrage News; Official
Reports of Parliamentary Debates 191 1-1919. (M. G. F.)
WOMEN (see 28.782). The decade 1910-20 saw not only an
advance in the position of women, unparalleled in any similar
period, throughout the civilized. world ; it saw also an entire rever-
sal of the public attitude towards their claim to equal citizen-
ship. Yet this is true only of the second half of the period. From
1910-4 there was little or no progress; there was indeed retrogres-
sion. By 1910 the " Woman Movement " of the later igth century
had very largely resolved itself into a movement for obtaining
the parliamentary franchise, a concentration upon a single object
deplored by some but defended by others, who contended that
the denial to women of the full rights of citizenship constituted an
effective check upon their advance in any direction. The rise and
progress of " militant " suffragism in England between 1910 and
1914 (see WOMAN SUFFRAGE) did much to alienate public sympa-
thy. It was only the outbreak of the World War which brought
about that great and sweeping reform in the position of women
which had been accomplished by 1920.
(i) UNITED KINGDOM. After 1914 changes in the United
Kingdom were both numerous and rapid. The shortage of man-
power during the war opened up a great diversity of fields of
employment (see WOMEN'S WAR- WORK), and broke down bar-
riers in the Civil Service and the learned professions, which had
hitherto seemed impregnable. Nothing more was heard in the
great war departments of those " structural " and other insuper-
able obstacles to the coemployment of men and women, which
figured so largely in the evidence of practically every male civil
servant before the Royal Commission on the Reform of the Civil
Service, reporting in April 1914. When the institution of the two
new orders of honour, the Companions of Honour and the Order
of the British Empire, was announced in June 1917, it was de-
clared that the bestowal of these decorations for war services
would be irrespective of sex. In Aug. 1917 a resolution to re-
move the grille in front of the ladies' gallery of the House of
Commons was passed by that House without debate. By the
1040
WOMEN
Representation of the People Act (1918) women over 30 gained
the parliamentary vote, and by a special Act passed in Nov. they
were made eligible as members of Parliament, though the only
woman elected at the general election of that year, Countess
Markiewicz, refused, with the other Sinn Feiners, to take her
seat. The Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act (Dec. 1919) gave
women the right to hold practically every other public or pro-
fessional position pertaining to civil life with the exception of
membership of the House of Lords. Even this exception was
subsequently removed: on March 2 1922 the Committee on Privi-
kges of the House of Lords favourably passed upon a petition
by Lady Rhondda holding that she and the 24 other peeresses in
their own right were entitled to seats in the House of Lords.
As an immediate result of the Act women could be admitted to
the degrees of any university, whatever the terms of its previous
charter. The university of Oxford rose to the height of its oppor-
tunity; Cambridge, up to the close of 1921, still lagged behind.
In the general election of Dec. 1918 women, who had qualified by
residence and examination for degrees not yet conferred upon
them, exercised the university franchise by reason of that qualifi-
cation. The absurdity of such a position appealed to the more
logical university: In Feb. 1920 Prof. Geldart introduced a
statute into Congregation at Oxford, proposing to admit women
to full membership of the university. Two amendments were
moved on March 9, one to exclude women from university boards,
the other from examinerships, but both were' rejected by large
majorities. On May n the statute was carried without alteration,
and three subsidiary statutes, admitting women to all university
offices, passed unopposed. Since Oct. 7 1920 the women stu-
dents of Oxford have enjoyed the same advantages, and been
subjected to the same university discipline, as the men. They
even wear in slightly modified form the same academic dress at
lectures and all university ceremonies. Moreover the gift was
retrospective; every woman who had passed the examinations
for the degree course and resided not less than 9 terms (three
years) in Oxford as a member of a recognized Society of Women
Students (such societies being the four women's colleges, or the
Society of Oxford Home Students) became eligible for a degree,
and on Oct. 14 the degree of B.A. was actually conferred upon a
large number of qualified women, the principals of the various
colleges and halls and the principal of the Oxford Home Students
receiving the hon. degree of M.A. On March u 1921 the hon.
degree of D.C.L. was conferred on Queen Mary, on the occasion
of a visit to Oxford in support of the appeal of the Oxford women's
colleges for funds to meet the anticipated increase in the number
of students anxious to matriculate at a university which offered
them full privileges of membership. During the academic year
1920-1 the total number of degrees conferred upon women at
Oxford was: B.A. 621; M.A. 345; B.Litt. 9; B.Sc. 3; B.C.L. i;
B.Mus. 2; D.Mus. i; D.C.L. i.
At Cambridge the position up to the summer of 1921 remained
uncertain and, from the women's point of view, unsatisfactory.
On Dec. 8 1920 a proposal to admit women to degrees was de-
cisively rejected by the Senate, the figures being 712 for and 904
against. An alternative scheme to set up a separate university
for women 'at Cambridge, conducting its own examinations and
conferring its own degrees, met with no favour and was strongly
opposed by the women concerned. When it came before the
Senate (Feb. 12 1921) it was rejected by 146 votes to 50. A
" compromise " scheme, giving membership of the university and
full degrees and making women undergraduates eligible for
professorships, lectureships, university boards and syndicates
but not for the Senate, was again rejected on Oct. 20 when it was
defeated by 908 Votes to 694. An alternative scheme for con-
ferring by diploma " titular" degrees on women, carrying with
them no university membership, was passed by 1,012 votes to
370. This alternative, however, was unacceptable to the women.
Amongst the learned and academic distinctions won by women
during the decade may be noted the presidency of the botanical
section of the British Association held by Ethel Sargent (d. 1918)
in 1913 and by E. R. Saunders in 1920. In Dec. 1920 Eugenie
(Mrs; Arthur) Strong was appointed Rhind lecturer in archae-
ology and the first woman fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.
In 1918 the Founder's Gold Medal of the Royal Geographical
Society was bestowed upon Gertrude Margaret Lowthian Bell.
By Section 2 of the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act
women were permitted to become solicitors. Three years earlier
(Jan. 1917) a proposal to admit women to the bar had been
defeated at its annual general meeting by a large majority,
though in Feb. 1917 a bill to permit them to qualify as solicitors
obtained a second reading in the House of Lords. On Jan. i
1920 Mrs. Gwyneth Marjory Thomson (Bebb), who died at
the 1 early age of 31, was admitted at Lincoln's Inn as the
first woman student for the English bar. She had previously
(1913) tested the legality of a woman practising as a solici-
tor by bringing (with others) a case against the Law Society.
On May 7 1920 Miss Tata, a Parsi, was admitted, also at Lin-
coln's Inn, as a student preparing for the Indian bar. A
few women presented themselves for the law examinations at
the universities and passed with distinction, Mrs. Thomson ob-
taining a ist class at Oxford, and Miss L. F. Nettlefold at Cam-
bridge, and in June 1921 Miss K. Snell of Girton College was
placed above No. i in Class I. of Part II. of the law tripos at
Cambridge. In March 1921 five women passed the intermediate
examination for the bar and on May 26 Olive Catherine Chap-
man passed the final examination.
Seven women (the Marchionesses of Crewe and of London-
derry, Mrs. Humphry Ward, Mrs. Lloyd George, Miss Elizabeth
Haldane, Mrs. Sidney Webb and Miss Gertrude Tuckwell) were
appointed justices of the peace on Jan. i 1920. On Jan. 9 Mrs.
Ada Summers, mayor of Stalybridge, took her seat as first woman
chairman of the bench. In March of that year 24 women were
appointed for the county of Lancaster, and in July a large num-
ber were appointed for the county of London; appointments were
subsequently made throughout the United Kingdom.
On Aug. 6 iQ2o women jurors were for the first time em-
panelled, at Bristol. In Jan. 1921 women jurors were first
summoned to the Central Criminal Court, London, and were
also first called as " special jurors " in the Probate and Divorce
Court. The first case which they had to try involved details of an
unpleasant character, and some controversy subsequently arose
as to the suitability of mixed juries in divorce and other cases. It
was, however, generally held that the discretion left to the
judge to make an order exempting women from service in cases of
a certain kind was sufficient safeguard, and a bill, introduced
into the House of Commons by Mr. G. Terrell on April 15 to
amend the Sex Disqualification Act by providing that no women
should be compelled to serve on a jury, failed to secure support,
only 19 members being present when he introduced it.
Shortage of candidates for the medical profession during the
World War encouraged a very large number of women students
to present themselves. War conditions led to the admission of
women students to several of the London general hospitals;
before the war they were restricted to the Royal Free Hospital
and the School of Medicine attached to it, or to the few hospitals
for women, staffed by women. A notable advance was also made
in placing the Endell Street (London) military hospital, opened
Feb. 1915 by the R.A.M.C., under Dr. Louise Garrett Anderson
and Dr. Flora Murray, and by the employment of other women
surgeons and physicians under the R.A.M.C. in Malta, Salonika
and elsewhere.
Progress in the Civil Service was rapid during the war, when
women, as temporary civil servants, held many responsible
posts, and were paid on a higher scale than had previously ob-
tained. On May 19 1920 the House of Commons passed a resolu-
tion declaring that women employed in the service of the State
should have equal opportunities and equal pay with men engaged
on the same work. But the power to reserve to men certain de-
partments of the service, given to the Treasury by Order in
Council, was widely exercised, and the progress made fell short of
the desires and expectations of the women affected (see WOMEN'S
EMPLOYMENT). On Aug. 5 1921 a debate on the subject took
place in the House of Commons on a resolution moved by a
private member. A Government amendment to it was agreed to,
WOMEN
1041
whereby for a provisional period of three years special conditions
were to obtain both as to method of selection and rates of pay,
but subsequent conditions were to be the same for both sexes.
No barriers now exist excluding women from any profession,
except the army and navy, and ministry of the Church of Eng-
land or the Roman Catholic Church. In Feb. 1920 Convoca-
tion passed a resolution against giving permission, even to
accredited women " to preach and pray in congregations com-
posed of women and children," but in July the Lambeth Con-
ference recommended the admission of women to the diaconate
and a wider use of their ministry in non-liturgical services.
Permission was, however, refused to Miss Maude Royden to
preach in a London church at a special Good Friday service in
March 1921. The General Assembly of the English Presbyte-
rian Church resolved in May 1921, by 156 votes to 124, to
admit women as elders and deacons.
In practically all other directions the field lies open to women.
Their achievements during the war proved that they but needed
opportunity. The remaining struggle was not for permission to
work but for adequate remuneration. " Equal pay for equal
work " became their rallying cry. It was inscribed upon the
banners of an imposing procession, demanding equality in the
Civil Service, which paraded London on April 28 1920; it formed
the basis of the protest of women teachers to the Minister of
Education (May 1920) and of their demonstration in Trafalgar
Square (Nov. 1920) against the proportion (four-fifths) of male
salaries allowed them under the Burnham scale. In the indus-
trial world the women's claim to an equal bonus prompted the
successful strike of tramway and omnibus workers in London
in Aug. 1918. Not inappropriately the National Union of Women
Suffrage Societies renamed itself the National Union of Societies
for Equal Citizenship.
The problem was no longer political, or even social; it was eco-
nomic. The removal of the few remaining disabilities of women, such
as their inferior share in the guardianship and control of their
children, depends in the last resort upon the securing for them,
whether in marriage or out of it, of economic independence. Other-
wise freedom to control those whom she cannot maintain, or the
right to leave a husband when she is incapable of maintaining her-
self, are illusory rights of little value to a woman. When the last
traces of the legal theory that husband and wife are one person, and
that the woman, as such, must be under the tutelage or guardian-
ship of parent or husband, have been obliterated, there will still
remain need for legislation securing to a woman freedom to work
outside her home, or, as an alternative, wages for work within it
going beyond bed and board, as well as a fair share of joint earnings.
j Not till this is accomplished will the theory of equal citizenship
have been translated into fact. (J. E. C.*)
(2) UNITED STATES. The increase in interest in professional
work for women in the United States, during the World War, was
evidenced by the number of bureaux and associations for the
exchange of information in this field. A book published in 1920
by the director of the Intercollegiate Vocational Guidance
Association told the story of over 30 groups of professional
occupations where women were already at work. An examination
of the many branches under the main groups indicated that there
was practically no profession women had not entered. The
Bureau of Vocational Information published intensive studies of
the leading professions, and the National Social Workers' Ex-
change was organized to place trained workers in professional
positions throughout the country. During the World War in-
creased opportunities came to women, both in the accustomed
professions and also in new lines of endeavour. It is probably
true, however, that most of the professional work, which was
considered " new " to women, was " new " only in the sense that
it was unknown to the general public. In the case of employment
managers, personnel and welfare workers, for instance, women
had been employed for some time, but the war increased the
number and brought their work vividly before the public.
Industry. Many of the women taking executive positions in
industry had been forewomen and were promoted in the war emer-
' gency. In one investigation of 250 plants, 146 employed women
executives other than forewomen. The more important positions
included those of designers, office or factory managers, employment
managers, welfare directors, nurses and occasionally doctors,
matrons, lunchroom managers, production supervisors, depart-
ment heads, statisticians and saleswomen on the road. Later there
developed a tendency to employ college women in these positions,
and by 1920 at least three universities and a half-dozen schools had
offered special training courses. One school alone graduated over
200 women whose salaries ranged from $2,000 to $5,000 a year.
Medicine. Perhaps the most important demand among the
already recognized professions was for an increased number of
nurses and doctors. In 1920 there were registered about 40,000
nurses in private practice and about 10,000 in public health work.
It was in the latter field where every effort was being made to in-
crease the number to 50,000. The number of women physicians at
the same time was about 6,000, and practically all of the American
medical schools were open to women, although not always on quite
the same terms as for men. Women were not only practising physi-
cians but they also held important positions in surgery, dentistry,
laboratory research, and on the staffs of hospitals and medical schools.
In addition to the " regular " physician it was estimated that there
were about seven or eight thousand women practising osteopathy.
Law. Since 1869, when the first woman was admitted to the
bar in Illinois, the profession of law has claimed an increasing number
of women. By 1921 every state in the Union except Delaware had
admitted both sexes, and at least 1, 600 women were practising in
various branches of both civil and criminal law. Out of 129 law
schools only 27 then refused admittance to woman students, but
among those refusing were two of the leading schools, Harvard and
Columbia. In many cases women who were graduate lawyers
specialized in one phase of work such as corporation law, patent
law, legal research or court work: Others did not enter the practice
of law but engaged in work where their legal training became
valuable background. Among the important Government positions
held by women lawyers in 1921 were those of the U. S. probatfe
attorney, judge of the juvenile court in the District of Columbia,
city magistrate in New York City, deputy collector of customs, and
county attorneys, treasurers, clerks, probate judges and justices of
the peace in various states. Two states have had women assistant
attorneys-general, and probably the most important position held
by a legally trained woman was that of assistant attorney-general
of the United States.
Education. One of the few professions given over very largely
to women was that of teaching. Women almost completely filled
the ranks in the elementary public schools, and very nearly so in
the higher grades. Men predominated in the colleges and universi-
ties, but women held many important positions as faculty members