The Women's Executions Database
Description
Presented here is a dataset containing all known executions of women carried out under civil authority up until 2021. Many studies that mention gender use a dataset that estimates that about 365 women were executed in the U.S. between 1608 and 2002. The number of women executed in the U.S. since the 1600s is, in fact, higher than 700. The goal is to produce a dataset that encompasses experiences most relevant to women (e.g., histories of trauma, parenthood) in addition to providing variables that will allow for evidence-based quantitative research.
My priority is to verify the preexisting dataset and add new variables as I come across them. The data that currently exists is incomplete but is the best collection (thanks mainly to the data collection efforts of the M.E. Grenander Archivists and Librarians at the University of Albany and are therefore ready for preliminary analysis. With that said, requesting a different format (SPSS or STATA) and/or clarification on specific items will only help me so do not hesitate to contact me. Until I have completed my application with zenodo, please refer to the larger project in which the data are housed: The women's executions project.
Abstract
The Website that the data are housed on is to assist researchers and dedicated professionals who are working on behalf of women and revealing gendered and racial injustices. The United States judicial system is predicated upon credible, reliable, evidence. At the very least, judges, lawyers, and advocacy groups should be aware of significant flaws in the quantitative data used by different media, organizations, and even in the court room. There is no one reliable data source of women's executions that spans all of American history and encompasses women's experiences with the criminal justice system. Especially not one that contains a more representative account of black women's executions in the U.S. since colonial times.
Files
CHANGELOG_WEBv12.md
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Additional details
Additional titles
- Alternative title
- WEB
Related works
- Is previous version of
- Journal article: 10.3390/sexes6020027 (DOI)
Dates
- Updated
-
2026-07Version 12
References
- M. Watt Espy Papers, 1730-2008. M.E. Grenander Department of Special Collections and Archives, University Libraries, University at Albany, State University of New York
- Victor L. Streib Papers, 1908-2012, Undated. M.E. Grenander Department of Special Collections and Archives, University Libraries, University at Albany, State University of New York.
- Baker, D. V. (2008). Black female executions in historical context. Criminal Justice Review, 33(1), 64–88. https://doi.org/10.1177/0734016808316782
- Espy, M. W., & Smykla, J. O. (2016). Executions in the United States, 1608-2002: The Espy file (ICPSR 8451) [Data set]. ICPSR. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR08451.v5
- Sewall, Samuel. (1878). The Diary of Samuel Sewall. Vol. II. Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Fifth Series, vol. IV. Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society.
- Baker, D. (2016). Women and Capital Punishment. MacFarland Books
- Mississippi State Treasurer's Disbursement Journal, Mississippi State Archives
- NewYork Historical Society https://www.correctionhistory.org/hangings/hangdates2.html
- University Libraries, UNC Greensboro. (n.d.). Digital Library on American Slavery.
- Cornell University Library Collection Trial Pamphlets collection https://digital.library.cornell.edu/catalog?f%5Bsubject_all_tesim%5D%5B%5D=Trial+Pamphlets+Collection&search_field=all_fields
- Winthrop, J (1853). History of New England from 1630-1649. Little Brown & Company
- Witkowski, Monica C. ""Justice Without Partiality": Women and the Law in Colonial Maryland, 1648-1715" (2010).Dissertations
- Winthrop, John. The Journal of John Winthrop, 1630-1649. Eds., Richard Dunn, James Savage, and Laetitia Yeandle. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1996. Trumbull, James Hammond ed., The Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut, Volume 1, 1636-1665. (Hartford: Hartford, Brown and Parsons, 1850).
- Jones, A. (2009). Women who Kill. New York: The Feminist Press. https://muse.jhu.edu/book/10609.
- Hall, D.D. (2005). Witch-Hunting in Seventeenth-Century New England: A Documentary History 1638-1693, Second Edition. (2nd ed. ed.). Durham: Duke University Press.
- Witkowski, Monica C. ""Justice Without Partiality": Women and the Law in Colonial Maryland, 1648-1715" (2010).Dissertations
- Connecticut History https://connecticuthistory.org/topics-page/women/
- Louis H. Burbey, History of Execution in Michigan, Michigan History Magazine, Vol. XXII (1938).
- History of Christian County, Kentucky, From Oxcart to Airplane, by Charles M. Meacham, Marshall and Bruce Company (1930)
- Clark, Richard H., 1824-1896 (1898). Memoirs of Judge Richard H. Clark / edited by Lollie Belle Wylie. Retrieved from https://dlg.galileo.usg.edu/georgiabooks/do-pdf:gb0442
- Death Penalty Information Center executions database (n.d.) https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/facts-and-research/data/executions [database]