The League of Women Voters of the United States traces its roots to Boston. Suffragists Maud Wood Park, Pauline Agassiz Shaw, and Mary Hutcheson Page were among those who founded the Boston Equal Suffrage Association for Good Government (BESAGG) in 1901. BESAGG’s purpose was “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.” With the adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1920, the organization became the League of Women Voters of Boston.
More than ninety years later, the Boston League remains true to its mission by promoting civic participation and ensuring that all of Boston residents, men and women, have increased access to government. We observe and often host public forums with organizations that are central to the Boston League’s work: The City Council, Boston School Committee, the Election Department and the Boston Redevelopment Authority. Our advocacy prompted the League to found, with the Boston Shipping Association, the Boston Harbor Association. Our study of waste-treatment options at Deer Island led League activists to promote more environmentally sound alternatives to treating raw sewage. And our commitment to inclusiveness in a city as richly diverse as Boston prompted us to create much-needed voter-service guides in English, Spanish, Haitian Creole, Vietnamese, and Chinese.