Born and raised on Allen Street in the West End, Jennie Loitman Barron (1891-1969) attended Boston University as an undergraduate and law student. While there, she organized the Boston University Equal Suffrage League and frequently spoke on street corners for women’s equality. In 1925, she became the first mother elected to the Boston School Committee. She served as the first full time woman judge in Massachusetts and was appointed the first woman judge on the Massachusetts Superior Court in 1959. Barron campaigned to include women jurists, a goal achieved in the early 1950s.
Annie Londonderry (ca1870-1947) is known mainly for her well publicized bicycle trip in 1894-95, purportedly around the world. Born in Latvia, she lived in the West End as “Annie Cohen Kopchovsky.” Departing on her bicycle from the Massachusetts State House, she was cheered on by her family, friends, and assorted suffragists.
