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Portrait Monument by Adelaide Johnson, 1920
The National Woman's Party (NWP) commissioned sculptor Adelaide Johnson to create a statue based on her busts of Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Lucretia Mott. It was briefly displayed in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda in 1921; it was then out of sight in the Capitol crypt, until 1997, when it was moved back to the rotunda.
Portrait Monument, the 1920 statue of Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Lucretia Mott, features an unfinished shaft of marble. The artist said it represents women's rights left to win. The empty surface also calls to mind the women not depicted who should be honored. African American activist C. Delores Tucker urged Congress to alter Portrait Monument to include the women's contemporary Sojourner Truth. Congress decided instead to commission a new statue of the African American abolitionist and women's rights activist.
Together we create icons by choosing the women whose lives and contributions we admire and remember. Who do you think is an icon? |