The ''Women's Rights Pioneers Monument'' is a sculpture by

Meredith Bergmann Meredith Bergmann is an American sculptor, poet, and essayist whose work is said to "forge enriching links between the past and the concerns of the present." She studied at Wesleyan University and graduated from The Cooper Union with a BFA. While ...

. It was installed in

Central Park Central Park is an urban park in New York City located between the Upper West Side, Upper West and Upper East Sides of Manhattan. It is the List of New York City parks, fifth-largest park in the city, covering . It is the most visited urban par ...

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, on August 26 (

Women's Equality Day Nancy Pelosi, Anna Eshoo, Barbara Lee">Anna_Eshoo.html" ;"title="Nancy Pelosi, Anna Eshoo">Nancy Pelosi, Anna Eshoo, Barbara Lee and Jackie Speier on the 96th anniversary of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, when women won the right to v ...

), 2020. The sculpture is located at the northwest corner of Literary Walk along The Mall, the widest pedestrian path in Central Park. The sculpture commemorates and depicts

Sojourner Truth Sojourner Truth (; born Isabella Baumfree; November 26, 1883) was an American abolitionist of New York Dutch heritage and a women's rights activist. Truth was born into slavery in Swartekill, New York, but escaped with her infant daughter to f ...

(–1883),

Susan B. Anthony Susan B. Anthony (born Susan Anthony; February 15, 1820 – March 13, 1906) was an American social reformer and women's rights activist who played a pivotal role in the women's suffrage movement. Born into a Quaker family committed to s ...

(1820–1906), and

Elizabeth Cady Stanton Elizabeth Cady Stanton (November 12, 1815 – October 26, 1902) was an American writer and activist who was a leader of the women's rights movement in the U.S. during the mid- to late-19th century. She was the main force behind the 1848 Seneca ...

(1815–1902), pioneers in the

suffrage movement Women's suffrage is the right of women to vote in elections. Beginning in the start of the 18th century, some people sought to change voting laws to allow women to vote. Liberal political parties would go on to grant women the right to vot ...

who advocated women’s right to vote and who were pioneers of the larger movement for women’s rights. It is the first sculpture in Central Park to depict historical women. (A statue of the fictional character

Alice in Wonderland ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (commonly ''Alice in Wonderland'') is an 1865 English novel by Lewis Carroll. It details the story of a young girl named Alice who falls through a rabbit hole into a fantasy world of anthropomorphic creatur ...

is the only other female figure depicted in the park.) Original plans for the memorial included only Stanton and Anthony, but after critics raised objections to the lack of inclusion of women of color, Truth was added to the design.

History

Since 2013, the Statue Fund/Monumental Women campaign dealt with the City to "break the bronze ceiling" in Central Park to create the first statue of real women in the Park's 165-year history. The campaign was run by Gary Ferdman and Myriam Miedzian. Monumental Women raised $1.5 million in mostly private funding to pay for the statue, including contributions from foundations, businesses and over 1,000 individual donations. The statue campaign is dependent on private donations. Several troops of the Girl Scouts of Greater New York have donated money from their cookie sales to the fund and the fund has received a $500,000 grant from New York Life. The effort has the support of numerous elected officials, including Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, every member of the New York City Council Women’s Caucus, Congresswomen, U.S. Senators, as well as historians, foundations, and others. The Women’s Rights Pioneers Monument was created by sculptor

, who in July 2018 was chosen out of 91 artists who applied for the commission to create the statue. The New York City Public Design Commission approved Bergmann’s statue design on October 21, 2019. The sculpture was unveiled in Central Park on August 26, 2020, also celebrated as Women’s Equality Day, to mark the centennial anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote nationwide.

Statue design and process

In 1995, the artist

was working on a film set in Central Park and noticed there were "no sculptures of actual women of note and accomplishment." and 23 years later she was the sculptor who was awarded the commission for the design chosen to honor women of the suffrage movement in Central Park. The call for sculptors involved a Request for Qualifications and Request for Proposals, in which Monumental Women invited sculptors to submit illustrations of previous work, curriculum vitae and their approach to the design of the monument in sketch, text form or both. 91 artists from across the nation applied. The submissions were reviewed in a blind selection process by a diverse jury consisting of art and design professionals, historians and representatives from the New York City Parks Department and the Monumental Women. Four qualified finalists were invited to submit models for the monument with Bergmann ultimately receiving the commission. The competition was coordinated and managed by architecture firm Beyer Blinder Belle Architects & Planners LLP. The statue depicts Sojourner Truth speaking, Susan B. Anthony organizing, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton writing, “three essential elements of activism,” in Bergmann’s vision. Bergmann researched the women extensively, painstakingly studying every photo and description she could find in order to accurately portray not just their physical characteristics, but also their personalities. She believes it is important that a monument to them be “larger than life” to reflect the large impact that they had on history. Bergmann worked on a tight timeline to complete the statue in time for the unveiling on August 26, 2020, the fastest she’s ever completed a work of this scale. After receiving approval for her design from the New York City Public Design Commission in October 2019, Bergmann immediately began creating the 9-foot-tall clay figures. The rest of the process, including making molds, casts, pouring the molten bronze, final touch-ups and patina, took nearly all the remaining time until the scheduled unveiling on August 26, 2020. The sculpture was installed in Central Park on August 25, 2020, to mark the centennial anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment, which granted American women the right to vote.

Criticism

The Statue Fund/Monumental Women campaign has withstood criticism during the approval process of Bergmann's statue. The initial design of the statue featured Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton holding a scroll listing the names of 22 other suffragists. This was criticized as marginalizing these 22 other activists (seven of whom are women of color) and reducing them to a mere footnote. In the second maquette of the statue, the scroll was removed entirely, leaving only Stanton and Anthony. This version of the statue was unanimously approved by the New York City Public Design Commission. The Commission mostly issued critiques regarding the artistic elements of the statue, but concluded their statements saying, "(...) the Commission gives approval conditioned upon the understanding that, separate from the statue of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, the applicant will work to identify meaningful ways to acknowledge and commemorate women of color who played an active role in the Woman Suffrage Movement." However, the monument began receiving public criticism about its lack of representation of women of color. This seemed an especially acute issue given that the subjects of the statue, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, were co-editors of the first few volumes of '' The History of Woman Suffrage'', a six-part history of the women's suffrage movement that, some scholars and journalists claim, largely omitted the contributions of black women. This criticism was made despite a word search of the first three volumes of ''The History of Woman Suffrage'' finding African American woman suffragists mentioned at least 85 times, often with much detail and direct quotes. Sojourner Truth is mentioned over 50 times, Frances E. W. Harper 16 times, Mary Shadd Cary four times. Historian

Rosalyn Terborg-Penn Rosalyn Terborg-Penn (October 22, 1941 – December 25, 2018) was an American professor of history and author. Terborg-Penn specialized in African-American history and black women's history. Her book ''African American Women in the Struggle for th ...

said she used ''The History of Woman Suffrage'' and Stanton and Anthony’s newspaper, '' The Revolution'', to help identify African American woman suffragists. In the wake of public criticism, the statue was redesigned again, this time featuring three figures: Anthony, Stanton, and

. Truth, an African American abolitionist, suffragist, and activist, was active in the same time as Anthony and Stanton. Many people are satisfied the inclusion of Truth as representation of women of color in the suffrage movement. However, Truth is most famous for her 1851 "

Ain't I a Woman "Ain't I a Woman?" is a speech, delivered extemporaneously, by Sojourner Truth (1797–1883), born into slavery in New York State. Some time after gaining her freedom in 1827, she became a well known anti-slavery speaker. Her speech was deliver ...

" speech, and Monumental Women lists this speech as a reason for her fame. Several versions exist, as provided at The Sojourner Truth Project and the one most commonly reproduced portrays Truth as using a southern slave dialect unlikely for a New Yorker. It was written by

Frances Dana Barker Gage Frances Dana Barker Gage (pen name, Aunt Fanny; October 12, 1808November 10, 1884) was a leading American reformer, feminist and abolitionist. She worked closely with Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, along with other leaders of the ...

, nearly twelve years after the speech was given, and the statue does not specify any version.

References

External links

Monument Women website
{{Suffrage 2020 establishments in New York City 2020 sculptures 2020s in Manhattan Books in art Cultural depictions of Susan B. Anthony Elizabeth Cady Stanton History of women's rights in the United States Monuments and memorials in New York City Monuments and memorials to women Monuments and memorials to women's suffrage in the United States Sculptures in Central Park Sculptures of African Americans Sculptures of women in New York City Sojourner Truth Statues in New York City Statues of activists Women in New York City

History

Statue design and process

Criticism

See also

References

External links