The Mary Eliza Project

Mary Eliza Project members examine Boston Election Department records, 2021

Mary Eliza Project members transcribed the handwritten voter data and formatted it into a searchable and sortable dataset, accessible at the link above.

When the 19th Amendment was ratified, women in Boston registered to vote in separate ledgers — the Registers of Women Voters — and filled in information including their name, residence, birthplace, marital status, naturalization as citizens, and occupation. These 160 volumes are now held at the Boston City Archives and represent new voters from 26 historical wards, or voting districts, in the city.

To create as accurate a representation of the registers as possible, we used our historical knowledge and skills to interpret handwriting, research place names, decipher occupations, and more. We also broke down some fields in the registers into more granular fields in the dataset so that users could more easily search and sort the information. The dataset contains over 54,000  individual registration entries, representing over 54,000 Boston women who signed up to vote in the summer and fall of 1920.  

To understand each field in the dataset, use the data dictionary that we wrote in collaboration with the City of Boston’s Data team. 

To view the handwritten registers yourself, contact the City Archives.