Ulster County Exhibit Highlights Women Who Helped Shape Local Democracy

A new archival exhibit opening in Kingston will highlight the women who helped shape civic life in Ulster County, from some of the first women to register to vote to generations of local advocates who organized around issues affecting their communities.

The exhibit, “Women Shaping Democracy in Ulster County,” opens Wednesday March 11 at the Nina Postupack Archives Gallery on the second floor of the Ulster County Office Building at 244 Fair Street in Kingston. The event is free and open to the public.

The display features original voter registration books from the first elections after women gained the right to vote in New York in 1918, along with historical materials from the League of Women Voters of the Mid-Hudson Region and the Ulster County Archives.

Ashley Torres, commissioner of the Ulster County Board of Elections, said the idea for the exhibit grew out of a long-standing interest in preserving historical records that had remained largely out of public view.

“These are books that I’ve looked at for years,” Torres said. “They’ve been in our office for a long time, and I’ve always been interested in them.”

Torres said she began examining the records more closely around 2020 during the centennial of the 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote nationally. While reviewing one of the early registration books, she counted the names of the women who had signed up to vote in 1918.

Seeing those early records, she said, offered a powerful glimpse into the moment when women first began participating in elections in Ulster County.

The exhibit is also part of a broader effort to move older materials from the Board of Elections into the Ulster County Archives, where they can be preserved in a climate-controlled environment and made more accessible to the public.

Torres said the archives are better equipped to protect historic documents while also making them available to researchers and residents interested in local history.

Among the items on display are books documenting the first women voters in the county and materials tracing the work of the League of Women Voters in the Mid-Hudson region from the 1950s through today.

Torres said what she finds most compelling about the exhibit is that it highlights the role of everyday citizens in shaping democracy, not just elected officials.

“It’s about everyday citizens who took part in democracy, who voted, who worked together on a grassroots level to make the issues they cared about part of public life,” she said.

The exhibit also touches on how local women organized around issues such as environmental protection and child welfare, helping bring those concerns into the public sphere.

For Torres, the records also revealed a personal connection. While reviewing the voter books, she discovered the name of her own great-grandmother among the first women registered to vote in Ulster County.

“That made me really proud,” she said. “I think a lot of people would be interested in researching their own family ties if these records are digitized.”

County officials have discussed eventually digitizing the records, which could allow residents to search the historical documents online and explore their family histories.

Torres also pointed to a detail in the early voter books that she found especially meaningful: women were listed under their own names.

“When you look at our records, it is those women’s names,” she said. “Not Mrs. John Smith. It was their first name, their last name.”

That, she said, reflects the significance of the moment and the courage it may have taken for those women to register and vote for the first time.

“Being first is never easy,” Torres said. “It probably took a lot of courage to go and register and cast those first ballots.”

The exhibit opening will include remarks from Torres and Ulster County Clerk Nina Postupack. Organizers say they hope the display will encourage residents to reflect on the history of civic participation and the ongoing role local communities play in shaping democracy.

The exhibit will remain on display at the Nina Postupack Archives Gallery following the opening event.

Photo by: League of Women Voters Library of Congress, Washington D.C.