The Women's
Executions Project
Embedded Files
Resources and a working dataset encompassing state-sanctioned executions of all women occurring in the United States
(or territories that would become the U.S.)
from the 1600s to the present day.
An equally important impetus of this project is to honor the years of research of Alabama's very own M. Watt Espy, who is recognized as "America's foremost historian of executions" (Equal Justice Initiative). Running parallel to the construction of WEB is an ongoing project which addresses the privileging of knowledge in academia and the publish or perish attitudes that serve to minimize the work of non-traditional researchers or those whose approach may present uncomfortable narratives. This project does challenge the misplaced reverence for the "Espy File," explained in more detail on the Project Resources page. It is the papers of M. Watt Espy housed at the M.E. Grenander Department of Special Collections & Archives that served as one of the primary sources for data verification.
Importantly, the department completed verification and coding for five states back in 2020. For those looking for accurate Espy File data for both men and women for Alaska, Alabama, Hawaii, Oregon, and Wyoming, please refer to their website!
This is the first platform dedicated to the scholarly documentation of all known executions of women via one dataset (WEB, the Women's Execution dataBase). With a special emphasis on variables accounting for women's experiences it is, to the best of available knowledge, the only project to do so.
This website is an attempt to correct for the omission and misrepresentation of women. The goal is to produce a digitized dataset including variables like parental status, resistance to slavery, and other complexities related to the crime and identity. In so doing, emphasize the importance of M. Watt Espy in capital punishment research as well as the voluminous scholarship that focuses on the impacts of identity on criminal justice outcomes. If you need more convincing why this project is important---click on the below.
citation preference
citation preference
This project was registered with Open Science Framework (OSF) on June 25, 2024. https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/KTMXS.
If you are citing the project in general, (versus the dataset), please use the following:
Schulze, C. (2025, May 29). The women’s executions project. https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/SB36X
or Schulze, C. (n.d.) Executions of Women. The Women’s Execution Project, University of South Alabama, https://womensexecutionsproject.org
A special thanks to Sexes, whose open access approach to publication allowed me to "officially" introduce the website. (https://doi.org/10.3390/sexes6020027)
The number of women executed in the U.S. since the 1600s exceeds 700; a far larger number than represented in statistical reports.
By the end of this year, 2025, I expect to provide the documentation for at least 100 enslaved black women who were executed for the murder or attempted murder of their owners and/or family members. Moreover, I expect to have documented at least 60 executions for arson. Black women's resistance to slavery was not uncommon, was often met with violence, and many women lost their lives to state-sanctioned executions meant to control through fear.
437 of the executed 700 women have been identified as black and 227 as white. I have been able to add to the dataset and estimate at least 710 women have been executed
The number of women missing from most quantitative accounts of executed women.
195 (about 63%) of the 310 women missing from the most commonly cited dataset to this day.
Website and database created by Dr. Corina Schulze, email at cschulze@southalabama.edu for additional information. Please cite appropriately and respect that this project has been 3 years in the making (30 plus years for the late M. Watt Espy and countless years of collating the research by the archivists at the M.E. Grenander Library.
This project would be impossible without the diligent work of university archivists and staff at the University of Albany's M. E. Grenander Special Collections and Archives. Therefore, much of the individual datapoints cite the library's M. Watt Espy collection. And I have now actually visited the space (see The M.E. Grenander Archives Visit! ).
This site is, and will remain, a work in progress. Any omission of gratitude to any one person or organization that have made this possible is entirely accidental or simply have not made it to the website. The website's primary aim is updating data and therefore any failings of attribution are entirely unintentional. However, if you see such an oversight, please email me directly (Dr. Corina Schulze at cschulze@southalabama.edu). Substantive additions and suggestions for improvement are especially welcome.
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