SUFFRAGE, POLITICAL CONDITION, INDUSTRIAL AND PROFESSIONAL STATUS:  Women having property in school districts have school suffrage and may be elected school trustees.  They may be notaries. 40 women in ministry, 15 dentists, 17 journalists, 8 lawyers, 82 doctors, 7 professors, 5 saloon keepers, 10 bankers, 18 commercial travellers, 7 carpenters, etc.

Pennsylvania

AGE OF LEGAL CONSENT:  16.

POPULATION:  Male 3,204,541; female 3,097,574.

HUSBAND AND WIFE:  Wife controls own earnings.  Dower and curtesy prevail.  Wife cannot mortgage separate estate without husband’s consent; cannot sue or be sued or contract without his consent; and in order to carry on business in her own name must secure special permission from the court.  Husband is legal guardian of children, and must provide.

DIVORCE:  Absolute for impotence, bigamy, adultery, desertion for two years, cruelty or intolerable indignities, marriage within prohibited degrees of consanguinity or affinity, fraud, conviction for felony for more than two years, lunacy for ten years.

Limited divorce for desertion, turning wife out of doors, cruelty, adultery.

LABOUR LAWS:  Seats must be provided for female employees.  Employment of females in mines forbidden.  Children under 18 may not engage in any mendicant occupations; those under 15 may not exhibit in any place where liquor is sold nor take part in any acrobatic or immoral vocation.  Sunday labour forbidden.  No female may work in bakery or macaroni or other establishment more than twelve hours per day.  Children must go to school between 8 and 16.  No child under 16 may work in any anthracite coal mine.  No child under 14 shall be employed in any establishment.  One hour must be allowed for lunch.  No employment bureau shall send any female to an immoral resort.

SUFFRAGE, POLITICAL CONDITION, INDUSTRIAL AND PROFESSIONAL STATUS:  No suffrage. 290 women in ministry, 73 dentists, 125 journalists, 73 lawyers, 601 doctors, 38 professors, 183 saloon keepers, 17 bankers, 44 commercial travellers, 40 carpenters, etc.

Rhode Island

AGE OF LEGAL CONSENT:  16.

POPULATION:  Male 210,516; female 218,040.

HUSBAND AND WIFE:  Wife controls own earnings and separate estate, subject to husband’s right to curtesy.  Curtesy and dower both prevail.  Husband is legal guardian of children and must provide.

DIVORCE:  Absolute or limited for marriages originally void by law, conviction for crime involving loss of civil status, when either party may be presumed to be naturally dead from absence, etc., impotence, adultery, desertion for any time at discretion of court, continued drunkenness, neglect to provide, any gross misbehaviour.

LABOUR LAWS:  No child under 13 may be employed except during vacation.  No child under 15 may be employed unless he or she has school certificate.  No child under 14 to work in factory.  Hours of labour for children under 16 confined between 6 A.M. and 8 P.M.  Seats must be provided for all female employees.  No child under 16 shall be employed in any acrobatic, mendicant, dangerous, or immoral occupation.  Hours for female labour confined to ten.  Sunday labour forbidden.