Records of the Boston Equal Suffrage Association for Good Government in the Woman's Rights Collection, 1916-1920
Overview
Executive board minutes of the Boston Equal Suffrage Association for Good Government, a civic and suffrage organization. These records are part of the Woman's Rights Collection.
Dates
- Creation: 1916-1920
Language of Materials
Materials in English.
Access Restrictions:
Access. Originals closed; use microfilm, M-133, reel D2.
Conditions Governing Use
Copyright. Copyright in the records created by the Boston Equal Suffrage Association for Good Government as well as copyright in other papers in the collection may be held by their authors, or the authors' heirs or assigns.
Copying. Papers may be copied in accordance with the library's usual procedures.
Extent
4 VolumesThe four volumes contain typescript minutes of weekly Executive Board meetings, 1916-1920. The minutes include committee reports and announcements presented to the board, and the board's decisions on issues ranging from appropriating funds for activities, to endorsing the efforts of other organizations. The amount of detail varies, but is generally sparse.
HISTORY
Suffragists Maud Wood Park, Pauline Agassiz Shaw, and Mary Hutcheson Page were among those who founded the Boston Equal Suffrage Association for Good Government in 1901. Its purpose being "...to promote a better civic life, the true development of the home and the welfare of the family, through the exercise of suffrage on the part of the women citizens of Boston..." (1918 By-laws), Boston Equal Suffrage Association for Good Government was symptomatic of both the widening of suffragists' interests and their desire to expand their constituency by attaching themselves to other social reforms.
Although originally Boston Equal Suffrage Association for Good Government focused equally on suffrage and on the concerns (such as poverty, vice, street conditions, and prison reform) that it shared with other civic reform groups, by 1910 the organization concentrated almost solely on suffrage, convinced that without the vote women could not effectively improve government. Boston Equal Suffrage Association for Good Government joined other Massachusetts suffrage organizations in using tactics borrowed from militant British suffragists, such as house-to-house canvassing and open-air meetings and speeches. In addition, Boston Equal Suffrage Association for Good Government educated women about the functions of government so as to prepare them to be responsible, well-informed, voting citizens. After 1920, Boston Equal Suffrage Association for Good Government became the Boston League of Women Voters. For further historical information, see Lois Bannister Merk, Massachusetts and the Woman Suffrage Movement (Ph.D. thesis, 1961), Schlesinger Library microfilm (M-19), or Sharon Strom, "Leadership and Tactics in the American Woman Suffrage Movement: A New Perspective from Massachusetts," Journal of American History 62 (September 1975): 296-315.
Physical Location
Collection stored off site: researchers must request access 36 hours before use.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
These papers of the Boston Equal Suffrage Association for Good Government fill four volumes of the Woman's Rights Collection, which was given to Radcliffe College in August 1943 and formed the nucleus of the Women's Archives, later the Schlesinger Library. The material in these volumes was prepared for microfilming in January 1990 by Kim Brookes. It was microfilmed as part of a Schlesinger Library/University Publications of America project.
- Title
- Boston Equal Suffrage Association for Good Government. Records of the Boston Equal Suffrage Association for Good Government in the Woman's Rights Collection, 1916-1920: A Finding Aid
- Author
- Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America
- Language of description
- eng
- EAD ID
- sch01012
Repository Details
Part of the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute Repository
The preeminent research library on the history of women in the United States, the Schlesinger Library documents women's lives from the past and present for the future. In addition to its traditional strengths in the history of feminisms, women’s health, and women’s activism, the Schlesinger collections document the intersectional workings of race and ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and class in American history.