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| Two women attended the first-ever LMC Annual Conference in 1913. |
Out of 114 attendees at the League’s 1913 annual conference, only two were women.
Given the moment in history, this is probably unsurprising. Females were still trying to get a toe-hold in the world of politics at that time, and the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution—granting women the right to vote—was still seven years away.
But times have changed, and the face of city government in Minnesota has transformed substantially over the last century. Today, 25% of all elected city officials in the state are women. Of those, 127 women are mayors and 953 are councilmembers. And a full 77% of the cities in our state have at least one female elected official.
This represents progress—even over just the last 10 years. In 2003, only 70% of Minnesota cities had at least one female elected official.
It makes you wonder: how many more city seats will women gain over the next decade? How about the next century?
Whatever the future holds, were they still with us today, we bet those women at the 1913 LMC conference would be proud.