Reconstruction of American Women in State and Territorial Legislative Offices, 1895–1995

TL;DR

This paper compiles data on American women in state and territorial legislatures from 1895 to 1995, offering insights into their political representation.

Contribution

The novel contribution is a comprehensive dataset of 6,466 female legislators with detailed individual information and geographic identifiers.

Findings

The dataset includes annual records of female legislators from 1895 to 1995.

Each entry contains details like name, party, and FIPS county codes for integration with other databases.

The data supports analysis of political representation and historical trends.

Abstract

This data paper presents a reconstruction of American women who have served in state and territorial legislatures (female legislators). The dataset spans from 1895 to 1995 and is reported at an annual basis. For all 6,466 women, individual information on each female legislator is provided, including their name, surname, party affiliation, city and county of residence, and the state they represented. Data for the Senate and House are reported separately. The data was extracted from the encyclopedia titled ``Women State and Territorial Legislators, 1895–1995. A State-by-State Analysis, with Rosters of 6,000 Women'' [1].

The dataset can be used to study patterns in political representation, assessing the involvement of women in government, and delving into significant themes such as the intersection between women legislators and the historical, cultural, and political dynamics of their era. The categorization of women according to their city/county of residence enables researchers to seamlessly integrate this data with other spatio-temporal databases. Additionally, the dataset includes the FIPS county codes corresponding to each woman's residence, facilitating convenient linkage with other datasets, such as census data, using the FIPS code.

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