Women's Executions Project

The Women's

Executions Project

This website is dedicated to the collection of resources and a working dataset of women executed in the United States.

The number of women executed in the U.S. since the 1600s exceeds 700- a far larger number than what is reported in current statistical reports and most academic research.

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!

Description of the site

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.

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 to capital punishment research as well as the voluminous scholarship that focuses on the impacts of gender and race on criminal justice outcomes. If you need more convincing why this project is important---click on the below button.

Click here

Summary of site updates

Chronology of Major Developments in the project (expansion of the above list)

Description of ongoing work

Verification of remaining cases.
Recovery and transcription of Espy archival materials.
Expansion of county-level, demographic, and offense-specific data.
Continued identification of enslaved women, Indigenous women, and other historically under-documented populations.
Preparation of the database for broader public dissemination and scholarly use.
Assembly of the team to officially begin Fall of 2026! Preparation for site migration to Wordpress.

June 2026

The dataset was fully recoded and updated for use in both SPSS and Stata.
Website content, including project descriptions and collaborator pages, was revised and expanded.
Continued archival research led to newly identified cases, revised statistics, and expanded historical context.
The project entered a new phase emphasizing data accessibility, methodological transparency, and preparation for migration to a dedicated public platform.

May 2026

State-level tables documenting the execution of Black and white women were added.
New statistical summaries were incorporated into the preliminary findings section.
Additional enslaved Black women were identified and documented.
Duplicate cases were identified and removed, improving overall data accuracy.
New historical context and archival findings were incorporated into the database.
Research notes and resource pages were updated to reflect continuing discoveries.

March–April 2026

The database was reformatted to improve usability for researchers.
SPSS-compatible versions of the dataset were completed.
Preliminary findings were expanded with new statistical summaries and research notes.
Preparations for future collaborations and website expansion continued.

February 2026

The complete listing of executed women was made available through downloadable resources.
New pages were added illustrating original Espy index cards and demonstrating how archival evidence informed database construction.
Additional case studies and supporting documentation were added throughout the site.
Ongoing verification efforts continued to refine both the database and accompanying website materials.

January 2026

Major revisions were made to the website's structure and content.
New pages dedicated to infanticide, Indigenous women, and enslaved Black women were expanded.
More than 200 enslaved individuals were linked to identified slave owners.
County-level execution data exceeded 550 known locations.
Additional women were verified through extensive archival research, including materials from the Espy Papers and published historical sources.
Comparative analyses between WEB and the original Espy File were introduced.
The website began preparations for eventual migration to a new domain and platform.

November–December 2025

The project experienced significant growth through the verification of dozens of additional cases and the identification of new execution counties.
New pages were added highlighting Native American women, enslaved Black women, and emerging research on gender and capital punishment.
Documentation pages were expanded to include Espy notecards, case summaries, and methodological notes.
Compensation claims, slave-owner information, and execution contexts were systematically coded.
The database surpassed 700 documented executions of women, substantially expanding upon the original Espy File.
Preliminary findings were repeatedly updated to reflect new discoveries regarding historical "firsts," "lasts," execution methods, and offense categories.
Additional hidden and work-in-progress pages were created to support ongoing archival transcription efforts.

September–October 2025

New pages were added describing variable construction, internet resources, and academic research related to women and capital punishment.
County-level execution data were expanded and corrected.
Continued verification efforts resulted in the completion of numerous individual cases, particularly among enslaved women.
Several variables were recoded and refined, including victim race and crime classifications.
Historical errors identified in previous sources were corrected through archival verification.
Death-row analyses using the Death Penalty Information Center data were added as a separate research project.

For dates preceding September of 2025, see the 2025 summer project notes

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 only 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 website will be getting an overhaul and a dedicated team this coming fall so stayed tuned!

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.

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://sites.google.com/southalabama.edu/thewomensexecutionsproject/home-page

A special thanks to Sexes, whose open access approach to publication allowed me to "officially" introduce the website. (https://doi.org/10.3390/sexes6020027)

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