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The monument features a curved glass wall of honor that lists more than 200 women who made a difference in the lives and welfare of Virginians.
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Below the wall of honor is an engraved quote by Virginia best-selling author and social activist Mary Johnston.
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State employees and politicians including Del. Betsy Carr (center) and former Virginia Sen. Mary Margaret Whipple (second from right) were present for the event.
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Under yesterday morning’s stunning blue skies in a sun-blasted corner of Capitol Square, a preview was given of the in-progress Virginia Women’s Monument. The granite plaza includes a ceremonial sundial marked by distances to far-flung state localities and a curved glass wall of honor that lists, in random order, some 230 women who made a difference in the lives and welfare of Virginians. By next autumn the plaza is to include a dozen life-sized statues of significant women from the commonwealth’s four centuries.
While creating a public recognition of female contributions to Virginia’s history hasn’t taken the decades that women spent in gaining their right to vote, the project has taken several years to get this far. Former state senator Mary Margaret Whipple explained how the project began as an idea in 2010, requiring a gradual process to work through appointing members, appropriations, site selection, choosing those to honor by a dozen statuary figures ("And don't think that wasn't difficult," she says), whittling down from 30 design proposals and fundraising. A fall 2019 completion now seems even more relevant.
“We didn’t plan it this way, but this’ll be the 400th anniversary of several significant historic Virginia events that occurred in 1619,” Whipple says.
In addition, more women are stepping into the political and cultural fields than ever before, and this includes Virginians.
When conducting public forums about who should be placed on the pedestal, and how they should be represented, Whipple recalls, with a slight chuckle, “The biggest thing we heard was, ‘Nobody on a horse.’ ” Thus, none of the women will be on steeds but arrayed around the plaza as though in conversation, with each other, and with visitors.
The Virginia Women’s Monument Commission is raising $200,000 for each statue. The memorial’s fabricator, New York City-based StudioEIS (known here for the Virginia Capitol welcome center's remarkable Thomas Jefferson statue), is working to create the memorial plaza with Richmond’s 1717 Design Group.
Before the glass wall is an incised quote by Virginia best-selling author and social activist Mary Johnston. The thoughts are excerpted from a tract published by the National American Woman Suffrage Association of a 1912 address Johnston made to a Richmond conference of state governors. All men, by the way.
Johnston’s impatience with the tendencies of some Southern suffragists not to include African-American women in their campaign for the vote moved her to resign as honorary vice-president of the Southern States Woman Suffrage Conference. Here is some context to her forever quote; the inscribed words are in bold:
“It did not come up in a night, the Woman Movement, and it is in no danger of perishing from view. It is here to stay and to grow. It is not the world of a few fanatics and faddists. It is a perfectly logical phenomenon, born out of the fullness of time and the larger mind of the world; evidencing itself in all the countries of the world and under the most diverse circumstances, participated in by members of every social stratum, by the rich and the poor, the learned and the unlearned, the young and old. It is indestructible, it is moving on with an ever-increasing depth and velocity, and it is going to revolutionize the world.”
Before any of the statues are cast, more money must be raised. At this time, four of the statues are funded. Former Virginia First Lady Susan Allen said in her remarks, knowing the daunting number, “All we need is $800,000 more.”
Given the auspicious morning, the outcome seems inevitable.
