records of the
census. Between 1870 and 1900 the proportion of women in the professions
rose from less than two per cent to more than ten per cent; in trade and
transportation from 24.8 per cent to 43.2 per cent; and in manufacturing
from 13 to 19 per cent. In 1910, there were over 8,000,000 women
gainfully employed as compared with 30,000,000 men. When, during the war
on Germany, the government established the principle of equal pay for
equal work and gave official recognition to the value of their services
in industry, it was discovered how far women had traveled along the road
forecast by the leaders of 1848.

=The Club Movement among Women.=--All over the country women's societies
and clubs were started to advance this or that reform or merely to study
literature, art, and science. In time these women's organizations of all
kinds were federated into city, state, and national associations and
drawn into the consideration of public questions. Under the leadership
of Frances Willard they made temperance reform a vital issue. They took
an interest in legislation pertaining to prisons, pure food, public
health, and municipal government, among other things. At their sessions
and conferences local, state, and national issues were discussed until
finally, it seems, everything led to the quest of the franchise. By
solemn resolution in 1914 the National Federation of Women's Clubs,
representing nearly two million club women, formally endorsed woman
suffrage. In the same year the National Education Association, speaking
for the public school teachers of the land, added its seal of approval.

=State and National Action.=--Again the suffrage movement was in full
swing in the states. Washington in 1910, California in 1911, Oregon,
Kansas, and Arizona in 1912, Nevada and Montana in 1914 by popular vote
enfranchised their women. Illinois in 1913 conferred upon them the right
to vote for President of the United States. The time had arrived for a
new movement. A number of younger suffragists sought to use the votes of
women in the equal suffrage states to compel one or both of the national
political parties to endorse and carry through Congress the federal
suffrage amendment. Pressure then came upon Congress from every
direction: from the suffragists who made a straight appeal on the
grounds of justice; and from the suffragists who besought the women of
the West to vote against candidates for President, who would not approve
the fed