Women's Equality Day 2025

Women's Equality Day 2025 - Women of the Revolutionary Era

Join us on Tuesday, August 26, 2025 at 12:00 noon!

In the Public Garden in Boston near the Swan Boats!

On Tuesday, August 26, 2025, we will once again commemorate Women's Equality Day. This year’s 2025 theme for Women’s Equality Day is Women of the Revolutionary Era featuring a performance by Judith Kalaora from History at Play and more! Come join us! The event is free and open to the public! 

About Women’s Equality Day 

Since 2011, the Massachusetts Women’s History Center (formerly Suffrage100MA) has been commemorating Women’s Equality in the Public Garden near the Swan Boats! Thanks to N.Y. Congresswoman Bella Abzug (1920 - 1998), Congress designated August 26th as “Women’s Equality Day” to commemorate the day the 19th Amendment was added to the Constitution, which prohibits denying U.S. citizens the right to vote on the basis of sex. While the 19th Amendment does not discriminate, other laws prevented many Americans from voting, including Black, Native American, and Asian American communities, who would not receive enfranchisement until after the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and other crucial legal victories.

Did you know there is a feminist story about the Swan Boats?! 

A year after Robert Paget launched his wonderful Swan Boat in the Public Garden in 1878, he tragically died at the age of 42, leaving his wife, Julia, a widow with four children and no income. She decided to take over running the Swan Boats, but the Boston business community - run, of course, by white men - was not keen on women running companies and therefore required her to obtain signatures of support from local business owners for years, which she did - persevering for 30+ years! Fourth generation Pagets run the Swan Boats today!