Schools are largely composed of women.

In the public schools there are 2,306 men and 9,811 women teachers.
The average monthly salary of the men is $46; of the women, $35.

* * * * *

The State Federation of Women's Clubs, Mrs. Lydia P. Williams,
president, is in effect a suffrage kindergarten, many of its members
working on committees of education, reciprocity, town and village
improvements, household economics, legislation, etc.

In Minneapolis a stock company, capitalized at $80,000, is being
formed to erect a club house for the women's societies.

The Local Council of Women of Minneapolis, organized 1892, is one of
the strongest associations of the kind in the United States. During
the past seven years it has been composed of nearly one hundred
different organizations in the city, and now comprises twelve
departments: reform and philanthropy, church, temperance, art, music,
literature, patriotism, history, education, philosophy, social and
civic. Honorary president, Mrs. T. B. Walker, acting president Mrs. A.
E. Higbee, and corresponding secretary, Mrs. J. E. Woodford, are
largely responsible for the success of the Council. (1900).

The School and Library Association was formed in 1899 at a meeting
called by representatives of the Political Equality, the Business
Women's, the Medical Women's and the Teachers' Clubs of Minneapolis.
Eleven hundred signatures are required for the nomination of a member
of the school board, but the women secured over 5,000 names on each
petition for their candidates for school and library trustees, the
largest one having 5,470. The association sent out dodgers with
pictures and brief write-ups of the candidates, and also leaflets
explaining to the women how to register and vote. Mrs. A. T. Anderson
has been at the head of this work.

Women attend the conventions of the Prohibition and the People's
parties as delegates, and are welcome speakers. Miss Eva McDonald
(Valesh) was secretary of the Populist Executive Committee. Both
Prohibitionists and Populists have passed woman suffrage resolutions
in their State conventions. The Federation of Labor and the Grange
have done the same.

FOOTNOTES:

[340] The History is indebted for this chapter to Mrs. Julia B. Nelson
of Red Wing, who for twenty years has been the rock on which the
effort for woman suffrage has been founded in this State. She
acknowledges much assistance from Drs. Cora Smith Eaton a