Uncovering the stories of Boston’s first women voters
By Simone Kramer
A melange of accents and languages punctuated through the night air outside 4 Hyde Park Avenue on Oct. 13, 1920. It was the last day for women to register to vote, and they arrived in droves.
The address now hosts Northeast Arts, an organization that hosts dance classes, rehearsal spaces and community events. At the time, it served as the voter registration site, months after women had won a decades-long struggle to win the right to vote with the ratification of the 19th Amendment.
Women officially gained the right to vote on Aug. 18, 1920, just months before the nation elected President Warren G. Harding.
Founded in 2021, the Mary Eliza Project works with City Archives to transcribe data from the General Registers of Women Voters Boston from August to October 1920, according to the City of Boston’s website.
Marta Crilly, one of the project’s founders and an archivist for reference and outreach at Boston City Archives, this was a time of great excitement but also stress for many women who scrambled to gather necessary documents for voter registration. Registration sites were packed on Oct. 13, the last day for enrollment.
“I think there’s probably something of a snowball effect,” said Crilly. As more women registered, their friends and neighbors felt empowered, understanding that this was a possibility for them.
Kathleen Coffey, a massage therapist and owner of Be The Light Yoga Studio in Winthrop, descends from a long line of East Boston residents. When the Mary Eliza Project posted an Instagram story about the data set, she jumped at the chance to learn more about her family’s story.
“It’s really cool to look in your family history,” Coffey said. “There’s things you can learn about their (ancestors’) lives and things that might have been passed on to you that actually come from them, even though you’ve never met them.”
The data set organizes information about more than 54,000 women, identifying their street address at the time of registration, along with their birthplace, age and occupation.
The sheet is organized by ward (neighborhood), so Coffey searched her last name through Ward 1, knowing her great-grandmother, Mary Coffey, lived at an address in the East Boston neighborhood.
“I knew it was her,” said Coffey
The Coffey family is a political story in Boston. Kathleen’s great-grandfather, James S. Coffey, was a city councilman for East Boston and a state representative. Her great-great-grandfather, Thomas F. Coffey was superintendent of elevators at City Hall. She grew up understanding the importance of voting from her grandparents.
“Fighting for their rights was something that was passed on,” said Coffey. Her great-grandmother registered to vote in September, shortly after the 19th Amendment passed.
Researchers are also able to look at the order of names on the data set to piece stories together. Since the data goes in order of registration, researchers can see who stood next to each other in line, and so forth. Inferences can’t be held as unassailably accurate, but a bit of investigation paired with visualization helps stories come to life.
Archivists noticed three women who had registered with the address 58 Orchard St. in Jamaica Plain. Their names were Agusta Osterland, Emma Gulliver and Lucille Gulliver.
When researchers dug into the background, they found that Lucille was an author, literary editor and proponent of the international peace movement. Her mother, Emma, was a great influence on her. In 1904, when women acquired the right to vote for school board elections, the Gullivers registered.
Agusta Osterland was born in Sweden, according to the data set. Her listed occupation was housekeeper. Because she lived at the same address as the Gullivers, project team members assumed she worked for them. The Gullivers also had a connection to Sweden, and researchers assume this relates to why they hired Osterland.
Although researchers don’t know what became of these women, the data set allowed them to identify three women at one moment in their lives and compare their stories.
“We have to use our imaginations a little bit,” said Crilly.
The project began with questions about who was registering to vote at the time, according to the project’s other founder, Dr. Laura Prieto. Were women of color successfully registering? Which voters were forgotten?
Overall, they wanted to learn more about the individual lives of Boston’s first women voters and make the information accessible to everyone.
“We want everyone to feel comfortable diving into it,” said Prieto.
The project is named after Mary Eliza Mahoney, the first African-American woman to become a licensed nurse, according to the National Women’s History Museum. She was also one of Boston’s first women voters.
The data set is accessible through the City of Boston’s website, along with a map of 1921 ward boundaries.
The project is run by volunteers and independent researchers who want to further develop curricula.
“We have big dreams but no funding,” Prieto said. “It’s a labor of love.”
Simone Kramer is a student in the Boston University Journalism program. This story is a partnership between Jamaica Plain Gazette and the Boston University Journalism program.