Women's Rights Pioneers Monument
It is the first sculpture in Central Park to depict historical women. Statues of fictional characters Alice in Wonderland and Juliet from Romeo and Juliet are the only other female figures 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 (originally known as the Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony Statue Fund) worked with the city to "break the bronze ceiling" in Central Park to create the first statue of non-fictional women in the Park's 165-year history. Previously, there had been no new additions to the statue collection in Central Park since the 1950s. The campaign was run by Gary Ferdman and Myriam Miedzian, who argued that Stanton and Anthony were ideal subjects for the monument based on their legacy as "long lasting leaders of the largest non-violent revolution in our nation's history." The Parks Department rejected the original Stanton/Anthony proposal multiple times, but eventually approved it when evidence was presented that Stanton and Anthony had a connection to Central Park.
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. 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. Manhattan borough president, Gale Brewer, who was a vocal supporter of the project, and Councilwoman Helen Rosenthal also donated a total of $135,000 to the project. Other supporters of the effort included numerous elected officials, every member of the New York City Council Women's Caucus, Congresswomen, U.S. Senators, and historians.
The Women's Rights Pioneers Monument was created by sculptor Meredith Bergmann, who in July 2018 was chosen out of 91 artists who applied for the commission to create the statue. The initial statue design was based on a photo of Anthony and Stanton side by side, with a long scroll tumbling down into a ballot box. The design received some controversy over the inclusion of names of other suffragettes on the scroll, with the New York Times stating that Anthony and Stanton "are standing on the names of these other women".
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 Meredith Bergmann was working on a film set in Central Park and noticed there were "no sculptures of actual women of note and accomplishment." 23 years later she 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.
In designing the monument, Bergmann was tasked with adhering to the neoclassical genre previously established in Central Park. Given the nature and prestige of the location, the commemorative privilege associated with constructing a new monument required consideration of several expectations for Bergmann's design. 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 has 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 monument's initial design faced significant criticism, complicating the approval process. The initial design of the statue features only Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. The two women lean over a scroll listing the names of 22 other influential women's rights advocates. This design was criticized for reducing these 22 other activists (seven of whom are women of color) to footnotes, portraying Stanton and Anthony being above the scroll implicating that the two are standing on all of those named below them. 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, and claims of "whitewashing the suffrage movement." Statue fund organizers Miedzian and Feldman denied this by claiming that a word search of the first three volumes of The History of Woman Suffrage, which Stanton and Anthony co-edited, found African American woman suffragists mentioned at least 85 times. Scholars have also claimed that Anthony and Stanton's advocacy for women's suffrage included themes of anti-Blackness, especially following the passing of the Fifteenth Amendment, which allowed Black men to vote. Particularly, racism against black women became a key part of validating white women's right to vote. Anthony herself is quoted as saying, "I will cut off this right arm of mine before I will ever work or demand the ballot for the Negro and not the woman." Stanton wrote a "letter to the editor" of the New York Standard regarding the political status of Black men compared to women, which fellow activist Angela Davis called "indisputably racist".
In the wake of public criticism, the statue was redesigned again, this time featuring three figures: Anthony, Stanton, and Sojourner Truth. Truth, an African American abolitionist, suffragist, and activist, was active in the same time as Anthony and Stanton. Many people are satisfied with the inclusion of Truth as representation of women of color in the suffrage movement, though others disagree with the depiction given Truth's opposition to Anthony and Stanton's comparison of black suffrage and female suffrage which may have overlooked black intelligence. Truth is most famous for her 1851 "Ain't I a Woman" 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, nearly twelve years after the speech was given, and the statue does not specify any version.
This inclusion was meant to symbolize cross-racial collaboration and acknowledge the pivotal role of Black women in the suffrage movement. However, the revision also sparked further debate. One particular scholar, Karma Chávez, stated that the monument "integrates Truth into present-day suffrage memory without asking viewers to engage the racism that shaped the movement." Critics argued that while the monument now recognized Black women's involvement, it might also inadvertently downplay the racism inherent within some segments of the white suffrage movement, particularly in the years following the Fifteenth Amendment.
The revised monument, therefore, was seen as both a step forward in acknowledging the diverse contributions to the suffrage movement and a subject of ongoing discussions about the complexities of public memorials in representing historical narratives. The WRPM's unveiling and the dialogues surrounding it underscore the significance of remembering the diverse and multifaceted history of women's rights activism while grappling with its historical intricacies and challenges.
See also
- 2020 in art
- List of monuments and memorials to women's suffrage
- Portrait Monument, 1920 sculpture, U.S. Capitol rotunda, Washington, D.C.
- Statue of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, 2021 statue in Johnston, New York