Research Guides: Women in Maryland: Maryland Women in Politics

Maryland Women in Politics

Maryland's first female legislator, Mary Eliza Watters Risteau, was elected in 1921, and became the first woman elected to the Maryland Senate in 1935. Since then, well over one hundred women have served in the Maryland legislature.

The University of Maryland holds many resources related to women in politics in Maryland, including books and archival materials.

Women Legislators of Maryland
A short history of women in the Maryland legislature.

Books on Women in Politics

Women Legislators of Maryland: Then and Now by Women Legislators of Maryland
Call Number: Maryland Folio JK3831 2004 .W6
Publication Date: 2004
The Politics of Public Housing by Rhonda Y. Williams; Rhonda Williams
Call Number: HV1447.B25 M55 2004
ISBN: 0195158903
Publication Date: 2004-09-09
LOCATIONS: Hornbake Library Maryland Room Maryland Stacks
McKeldin Library Stacks
Drawing on dozens of interviews, Williams challenges the notion that low-income housing was a resounding failure that doomed three consecutive generations of post-war Americans to entrenched poverty. Instead, she recovers a history of grass-roots activism, of political awakening, and of class mobility, all facilitated by the creation of affordable public housing.
Nannie H. Burroughs' rhetorical leadership during the inter-war period by Michele Ann Mason
Call Number: LD3231.M70d 2008 Mason, M.A.
Publication Date: 2008
LOCATION: Hornbake Library Maryland Room Maryland Thesis
Also available online
Although frequently praised for her rhetorical abilities and widely recognized as an influential leader in the African-American community, Nannie Helen Burroughs' speeches and writings have been the subject of little scholarly treatment.
Maryland women and the transformation of politics, 1890s-1930 by Diane E. Weaver
Call Number: LD3231.M70d Weaver, D.E.
Publication Date: 1992
LOCATION: Hornbake Library Maryland Room Maryland Thesis