Editing History of Missouri (section)

====Women====
Before the war the police and municipal judges used their powers to regulate rather than eliminate the sex trades. In [[History of the United States (1789–1849)|antebellum]] St. Louis, prostitutes working in orderly, discreet brothels were seldom arrested or harassed—unless they were unusually boisterous, engaged in sexual activities outside their established district, or violated other rules of appropriate conduct.<ref name="adler737-735">Adler (1992), 737–755.</ref> In 1861 St. Louis passed a vagrancy ordinance, criminalizing any woman who walked on the streets after sunset. In 1871 the city passed a law forbidding women from working in bars and saloons, even if the women were owners. These laws were meant to keep prostitution at a minimum, but adversely affected women who were legitimately employed.<ref name="romeo22-33">Romeo (2004), 22–33.</ref>

Middle-class women demanded entry into higher education, and the state colleges reluctantly admitted them. Culver-Stockton College opened in the 1850s as a coeducational school, the first west of the Mississippi. Women were first admitted to the normal school of Missouri State University at Columbia in 1868, but they had second-class status. They were shunted into a few narrow academic programs, restricted in their use of the library, separated from the men, and forced to wear uniforms. They were not allowed to live on campus. President Samuel Spahr Laws was the most restrictive administrator, enforcing numerous rules and the wearing of drab uniforms. Still, the number of women students at the school grew despite the difficulties.<ref name="lee373-386">Lee (1993), 373–386.</ref> When the Missouri School of Mines and Metallurgy opened at Rolla in 1871, its first class had 21 male and six female students. Well into the 20th century, the women who attended the school were given an arts and music program that was little better than a high school education.<ref name="christensen 1988 17-35">Christensen (1988), 17–35.</ref>

[[Josephine Silone Yates]] (1859–1912) was an African-American activist who devoted her career to combating discrimination and uplifting her race. She taught at the Lincoln Institute in Jefferson City, and served as the first president of the Women's League of Kansas City; she was later president of the [[National Association of Colored Women]]. Yates tried to prepare women for roles as wage earners in Northern cities. She also encouraged black ownership of land for those who remained in the South. Since whites judged blacks by the behavior of the lower class, she argued that advancement of the race ultimately depended on working-class adherence to a strict moral code.<ref name="kremer 1996 199-215">Kremer and Mackey (1996), 199–215.</ref>