Monument honors Virginia women
RICHMOND, VA. >> Around a thousand people filled Virginia’s Capitol Square for the dedication Monday of statues honoring some of the state’s trailblazing women, part of a monument organizers say is unlike any other in the country.
The new women’s monument, about a decade in the making, will eventually feature a dozen lifesized bronze statues dotting a granite plaza a short distance from the Capitol in Richmond. Girl Scouts pulled blue drapes off the seven figures being dedicated Monday, including Native American chieftain Cockacoeske and Jamestown colonist Anne Burras Laydon, as the women’s names were read aloud.
Sculptor Ivan Schwartz called it “a new beginning, a deeply significant moment in the history of the nation, as we begin to address centuries-old sins of omission.” The artist said that as part of the art direction and research for the monument, he looked across America and found a “shameful” lack of statues dedicated to women.
“Women have been excised from the marble pedestal of history,” said Schwartz, who continued: “This doesn’t change the past, but it does begin to open a room with a new view. And while not all Americans may like this, it is happening nonetheless.”
The women, who also include a frontierswoman, a dressmaker and confidante to Mary Todd Lincoln, an entrepreneur, and educator and a suffragist, were chosen from more than four centuries of Virginia’s history.
“They were from all walks of life, from different times and places,” said Mary Margaret Whipple, a former state senator who served as vice chair of the Women’s Monument Commission. “They were famous and obscure. Real women, even imperfect women, who have shaped the history of this Commonwealth.”
Organizers say there’s no other such monument on the grounds of a state capitol in the U.S. showcasing centuries’ worth of both individual and collective women’s contributions.