By Theresa Knapp 

Residents voted at the Annual Town Meeting in May to petition the state legislature to change the name of Hopedale’s executive arm of government from “Board of Selectmen” to “Select Board.” 

Town officials will now petition lawmakers to file the necessary legislation to make the change

Earlier this year, Brian Keyes, Chairman of the then-Board of Selectmen, said the name change “reflects diversity, equality, and inclusion.” The Board first approved the name change in 2019 but the next step was not taken. The issue was brought forward again in December 2020 when selectwoman Glenda Hazard was elected to the board. 

Ironically, Hopedale had been at the forefront of equality in the mid-1800s when it was a utopian society, according to “The Role of Women in Hopedale, a Nineteenth-Century Universalist-Unitarian Utopian Community in South-Central Massachusetts” by Deirdre Corcoran Stam (www.hope1842.com). 

“In the communal Massachusetts society known as Hopedale, existing formally from 1841 to 1856, women were granted an extraordinary range of rights comparable to those enjoyed by men, including holding office, owning property, and enjoying civil protection even within marriage. Women played a major role in civic engagement and intellectual life…” 

The proposed name change better reflects modern times, and also reflects similar actions taken recently in Milford, Mendon, Bellingham, Grafton, Sutton, and many other towns around the Commonwealth. 

In 2020, the Massachusetts Selectmen’s Association (est. 1929) changed its name to the Massachusetts Select Board Association “to reflect a movement among towns to adopt a gender-neutral name for their elected policy board,” according to www.mma.org.