Boston Equal Suffrage Association for Good Government

The Boston Equal Suffrage Association for Good Government (BESAGG) was founded in 1901 by Maud Wood Park, Pauline Agassiz Shaw, and Mary Hutcheson Page, among others, "...to promote a better civic life, the true development of the home and the welfare of the family, through the exercise of suffrage on the part of the women citizens of Boston.

[3] Originally BESAGG sought to address a range of issues, such as poverty and prison reform, as well as suffrage.

Its members were drawn from the middle and upper classes and its campaign methods were conventional and restrained.

They held spontaneous outdoor meetings on crowded street corners, attracting the attention of the press.

[7] They campaigned against anti-suffrage candidates, leading to the defeat of two state senators: Roger Woolcott in 1912 and Levi Greenwood in 1913.

By 1914, women's suffrage had the support of the Democrats, the Progressives, the Socialists, the State Federation of Labor, and Massachusetts governor David Walsh.