Women’s Inclusion and Participation in Municipal Elections: Historical Evidence from Eligible Voters Lists

Abstract

Historians and social scientists have long been interested in patterns of women’s inclusion and participation in the years that followed enfranchisement. Municipal elections—an important part of the larger history of women’s enfranchisement and electoral participation—have generally been neglected in this research. In this research note, we show how samples from lists of eligible voters in Canadian city elections can serve as a valuable data source for understanding patterns of inclusion and participation among Canadian women. Using the cases of Calgary, Edmonton, and Vancouver, we demonstrate that processes of inclusion followed markedly different trajectories in each city in the early twentieth century, with very slow inclusion in Vancouver and more rapid inclusion in Calgary and Edmonton. We also provide evidence for a 2% gender gap in turnout in Calgary during the city’s early post-enfranchisement decades. This analysis illustrates the value of widely available voters lists for research on women’s democratic inclusion.