principal of the high school is a woman; and a
large number of the clerks in the dry goods stores are women.
Miss Ingelletta Smith received the nomination of the Republican
party for school superintendent in the fall of 1881, but was
defeated by her Democratic competitor.

Marshalltown had a suffrage organization as early as July,
1870.[402] Nettie Sanford lectured in several of the central
counties of the State during that and the previous year.
Josephine Guthrie, professor of Belles-Lettres at Le Grand
College, in a series of able articles in the Marshalltown _Times_
in 1869, claimed for women equality of rights before the law. In
1873, Aubie Gifford, a woman of high culture and an experienced
teacher, was elected to the office of county superintendent of
the public schools of Marshall county, by a handsome majority;
she was reelected, serving, in all, four years.

At Algona a society[403] was formed in 1871. At the annual
meeting of the State Society at Des Moines, in 1873, Lizzie B.
Read delivered an address entitled, "Coming Up Out of the
Wilderness," and in July, 1875, at a mass-meeting at Clear Lake,
one on "The Bible in Favor of Woman Suffrage." Mrs. Read,
formerly as Miss Bunnel, published a paper called the
_Mayflower_, at Peru, Indiana, and in 1865 a county paper in this
State called the _Upper Des Moines_.

Since 1875 Jackson county has had an efficient Equal Rights
Society.[404] On July 4, 1876, Nancy R. Allen, at the general
celebration at Maquoketa, the county-seat, read the "Protest and
Declaration of Rights," issued by the National Association from
its Centennial Parlors in Philadelphia. It was well received by
the majority of the people assembled; but, as usual, there were
some objectors. The Presbyterian minister published a series of
articles in the _Sentinel_, to each of which Mrs. Allen replied
ably defending the principles of the Woman Suffrage party. The
Maquoketa Equal Rights Society celebrated the thirtieth
anniversary of the woman's rights movement July 19, 1878, by
holding a public meeting in Dr. Allen's grounds, in the shade of
the grand old trees. It was a large gathering, and many prominent
gentlemen of the city, by their presence and words of cheer, gave
dignity to the occasion. Jackson county has long