The Virginia Women's Monument is a state memorial in
Richmond, Virginia
Richmond ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), U.S. commonwealth of Virginia. Incorporated in 1742, Richmond has been an independent city (United States), independent city since 1871. ...
commemorating the contributions of
Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...
women to the history of the
Commonwealth
A commonwealth is a traditional English term for a political community founded for the common good. The noun "commonwealth", meaning "public welfare, general good or advantage", dates from the 15th century. Originally a phrase (the common-wealth ...
of Virginia and the United States of America.
Located on the grounds of the
Virginia State Capitol, the monument is officially titled Voices from the Garden: The Virginia Women's Monument and features life-sized bronze statues of eleven Virginia women placed in a small granite plaza.
The monument was first proposed in 2009
and established by joint resolution of the
Virginia General Assembly
The Virginia General Assembly is the legislative body of the Commonwealth of Virginia, the oldest continuous law-making body in the Western Hemisphere, and the first elected legislative assembly in the New World. It was established on July 30, ...
in 2010.
An 18-member commission, along with input from the Library of Virginia and professors of
women's history
Women's history is the study of the role that Woman, women have played in history and Historiography, the methods required to do so. It includes the study of the history of the growth of woman's rights, women's rights throughout recorded history, ...
, selected the women to be honored with statues sculpted by
StudioEIS in
Brooklyn, New York
Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...
. The granite plaza and Wall of Honor were opened in October 2018 and the monument was officially unveiled with the first seven completed statues on October 14, 2019.
The seven women were
Cockacoeske, chieftain of the
Pamunkey
The Pamunkey Indian Tribe is a federally recognized tribe of Pamunkey people in Virginia. They control the Pamunkey Indian Reservation in King William County, Virginia. Historically, they spoke the Pamunkey language.
They are one of 11 Native ...
tribe;
Anne Burras Laydon,
Jamestown colonist;
Mary Draper Ingles,
frontierswoman and
American pioneer
American pioneers, also known as American settlers, were European American,Asian American, and African American settlers who migrated westward from the British Thirteen Colonies and later the United States of America to settle and develop areas ...
;
Elizabeth Keckley, seamstress and confidant of
Mary Todd Lincoln
Mary Ann Todd Lincoln (Birth name, née Todd; December 13, 1818July 16, 1882) was First Lady of the United States from 1861 until the assassination of her husband, President Abraham Lincoln, in 1865.
Mary Todd was born into a large and wealthy ...
;
Laura Copenhaver, entrepreneur;
Virginia Randolph, prominent educator;
Adele Goodman Clark,
suffragist
Suffrage, political franchise, or simply franchise is the right to vote in public, political elections and referendums (although the term is sometimes used for any right to vote). In some languages, and occasionally in English, the right to vo ...
and activist.
In May 2022 additional statues of
Sarah Garland Boyd Jones, physician;
Maggie L. Walker, businesswoman and teacher;
Clementina Rind, the first female newspaper printer and publisher in Virginia; and
Martha Washington
Martha Dandridge Custis Washington (June 2, 1731 Old Style, O.S. – May 22, 1802) was the wife of George Washington, who was the first president of the United States. Although the title was not coined until after her death, she served as the ...
, inaugural first lady of the United States, were installed.
History
Proposal
The idea for the monument came in 2009 from
Richmond
Richmond most often refers to:
* Richmond, British Columbia, a city in Canada
* Richmond, California, a city in the United States
* Richmond, London, a town in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, England
* Richmond, North Yorkshire, a town ...
native
Em Bowles Locker Alsop — a writer and former actress who had been considered for the role of
Scarlett O'Hara
Katie Scarlett O'Hara is the protagonist of Margaret Mitchell's 1936 in literature, 1936 novel ''Gone with the Wind (novel), Gone with the Wind'' and the 1939 Gone with the Wind (film), film of the same name, where she is portrayed by Vivien Le ...
in the 1939 film
''Gone with the Wind''.
Alsop lobbied her state senator,
Walter Stosch, who subsequently introduced Senate Joint Resolution No. 11 in the 2010 session of the
Virginia General Assembly
The Virginia General Assembly is the legislative body of the Commonwealth of Virginia, the oldest continuous law-making body in the Western Hemisphere, and the first elected legislative assembly in the New World. It was established on July 30, ...
. The joint resolution, which created the Virginia Women's Monument Commission, was passed unanimously in both the
Virginia House of Delegates
The Virginia House of Delegates is one of the two houses of the Virginia General Assembly, the other being the Senate of Virginia. It has 100 members elected for terms of two years; unlike most states, these elections take place during odd-numbe ...
and
Senate of Virginia
The Senate of Virginia is the upper house of the Virginia General Assembly. The Senate is composed of 40 senators representing an equal number of single-member constituent districts. The Senate is presided over by the lieutenant governor of Vir ...
.
In 2015, Alsop died at the age of 98, three years before the monument was first opened to the public.
From the text of Senate Joint Resolution No. 11:
WHEREAS, throughout the ages women have been central to the perpetuation of society, and women of every nationality and race have left an indelible mark through their countless contributions, achievements, and accomplishments that have benefitted mankind; and
WHEREAS, from the founding of the Commonwealth, the genius and creativity of women and their presence and contributions have been evident in every aspect of Virginia history and the life of the people of the Commonwealth; however, they have received little appreciation, recognition, or official acknowledgement...
RESOLVED by the Senate, the House of Delegates concurring, That a commemorative commission to honor the contributions of the women of Virginia with a monument on the grounds of Capitol Square be established.
The joint resolution established that the Virginia Women's Monument Commission would be composed of 19 members—the
Governor
A governor is an politician, administrative leader and head of a polity or Region#Political regions, political region, in some cases, such as governor-general, governors-general, as the head of a state's official representative. Depending on the ...
, the Chair of the Senate Committee on Rules, the
Speaker of the House of Delegates, representatives from the Senate and House, the Clerk of the House, and eight members of the general public. The resolution also established that the monument would be built with private funds.
Design
The monument was planned to have a total of 12 statues, chosen from every
region of the state and representing the diverse achievements of women throughout the first 400 years of
Virginia's history. Standing in the center of the plaza is a granite pedestal topped by a bronze sundial engraved with the names of several Virginia localities.
Two benches line the sides of the oval plaza, along with a series of tempered glass panels, called the Wall of Honor, inscribed with the names of more than 200 additional important women of Virginia history.
By the time the statues of Sarah Garland Boyd Jones and Maggie L. Walker were installed in 2022, the press referred to a total of 11 figures. Included in the original plan but missing from the final design was
Sally Louisa Tompkins a Richmond hospital administrator and a captain in the Confederate army.
Statues
Current monument
Wall of Honor
A further 230 women are listed on the Wall of Honor of the Monument; further nominations are currently being solicited.
List of honorees
*
Em Bowles Locker Alsop
*
Pocahontas (Matoaka)
*
Pauline Adams
*
Mollie Adams
*
Lucy Addison
*
Mary Aggie
*
Ella Graham Agnew
*
Mary C. Alexander
*
Sharifa Alkhateeb
*
Susie M. Ames
*
Eleanor Copenhaver Anderson
*
V. C. Andrews
*
Orie Moon Andrews
*
Ann (Pamunkey chief)
*
Grace Arents
*
Nancy Astor
Nancy Witcher Astor, Viscountess Astor (19 May 1879 – 2 May 1964) was an American-born British politician who was the first woman seated as a Member of Parliament (MP), serving from 1919 to 1945. Astor was born in Danville, Virginia and rai ...
*
Addie D. Atkinson
*
Anne Bailey
*
Odessa Pittard Bailey
*
Mary Julia Baldwin
*
Lucy Barbour
*
Hazel K. Barger
*
Janie Porter Barrett
*
Kate Waller Barrett
*
M. Majella Berg
*
Frances Berkeley
*
Ann Bignall
*
Aline E. Black
*
Mary Blackford
*
Catherine Blaikley
*
Florence A. Blanchfield
*
Anna Bland
*
Cynthia Boatwright
*
Elisabeth S. Bocock
*
Anna W. Bodeker
*
Carrie J. Bolden
*
Mary Marshall Bolling
*
Matilda M. Booker
*
Gladys Boone
*
Dorothy Rouse Bottom
*
Geline MacDonald Bowman
*
Mary Richards Bowser
*
Rosa D. Bowser
*
Belle Boyd
*
Sarah Patton Boyle
*
Mildred Bradshaw
*
Lucy Goode Brooks
*
Belle S. Bryan
*
Mary E. Brydon
*
Annabel Morris Buchanan
*
Dorothea D. Buck
*
Pattie Buford
*
Evelyn T. Butts
*
Mary Willing Byrd
*
Sadie Heath Cabaniss
*
Mary Virginia Ellet Cabell
*
Willie Walker Caldwell
*
Edith Lindeman Calisch
*
Christiana Campbell
*
Elizabeth Pfohl Campbell
*
Eliza J. Carrington
*
Maybelle Carter
*
Sara Carter
*
Virginia Cary
*
Ruth Harvey Charity
*
Jean Outland Chrysler
*
Patsy Cline
Patsy Cline (born Virginia Patterson Hensley; September 8, 1932 – March 5, 1963) was an American singer. One of the most influential vocalists of the 20th century, she was known as one of the first country music artists to successfully Cross ...
*
Matty L. Cocke
*
Sarah Johnson Cocke
*
Naomi Silverman Cohn
*
Cynthia B. T. Coleman
*
Edna M. Colson
*
Esther I. Cooper
*
Hannah Lee Corbin
Hannah Ludwell Lee Corbin (February 6, 1728 October 7, 1782) was an American feminism, women's rights advocate and member of the Lee family in Virginia. A controversial widow in her own time in part for her refusal to marry her paramour (with who ...
*
Ann Cotton
*
Lucy Ann Cox
*
Daphne Dailey
*
Margaret Dashiell
*
Jo Ann Davis
*
Grace E. Davis
*
Jennie Dean
Jane Serepta Dean (April 15, 1848 – May 3, 1913) (nicknamed "Jennie" or "Miss Jennie") was born into slavery in northern Virginia, freed as a result of the American Civil War, and became an important founder of churches and Sunday Schools for ...
*
Helen Dewar
*
Emily W. Dinwiddie
*
Claudia Lane Dodson
*
Bertha L. Douglass
*
M. Estelle Eley
*
Virginia Randolph Ellett
*
Margaret Erskine
*
Lettie Pate Whitehead Evans
*
Sarah Lee Fain
*
Lillie Fearnow
*
Rachel Findlay
*
Edith Fitzgerald
*
Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Jane Fitzgerald (April25, 1917June15, 1996) was an American singer, songwriter and composer, sometimes referred to as the "First Lady of Song", "Queen of Jazz", and "Lady Ella". She was noted for her purity of tone, impeccable diction, phra ...
*
Eve D. Fout
*
Ethel Bailey Furman
*
Elizabeth Furness
*
Mary Jeffery Galt
*
Charlotte C. Giesen
*
Ellen Glasgow
Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow (April 22, 1873 – November 21, 1945) was an American novelist who won the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel in 1942 for her novel In This Our Life (novel), ''In This Our Life''. She published 20 novels, as well as shor ...
*
Meta Glass
*
Thelma Young Gordon
*
Nancy Hale
Nancy Hale (May 6, 1908 – September 24, 1988) was an American novelist and short-story writer. She received the O. Henry Award, a Benjamin Franklin magazine award, and the Henry H. Bellaman Foundation Award for fiction.
Early life and educat ...
*
India Hamilton
*
Dorothy Hamm
*
Marion Harland
*
Laura Jane Harper
*
Jean Harris
*
Orie Latham Hatcher
*
Della I. Hayden
*
Mary Rice Hayes-Allen
*
Sally Hemings
Sarah "Sally" Hemings ( 1773 – 1835) was a Black people, black woman Slavery in the United States, enslaved to the third President of the United States Thomas Jefferson, inherited among many others from his father-in-law, John Wayles.
Hemi ...
*
Rachel Henderlite
*
Helen T. Henderson
*
Susanne Hirt
*
Anne Makemie Holden
*
Judith Hope
*
Grace Hopper
Grace Brewster Hopper (; December 9, 1906 – January 1, 1992) was an American computer scientist, mathematician, and United States Navy rear admiral. She was a pioneer of computer programming. Hopper was the first to devise the theory of mach ...
*
Nora Houston
*
Mary W. Jackson
*
Annabella R. Jenkins
*
Kate Jeter
*
Florence Jodzies
*
Barbara Johns
*
Julia Johns
*
Mary Johnston
*
Mary Johnston-Brittain
*
Georgeanna Jones
*
Thomasina E. Jordan
*
Ona Judge
*
May L. Keller
*
Emma V. Kelley
*
Christine Herter Kendall
*
Lucille Chaffin Kent
*
Elizabeth Key
*
Ellen G. Kidd
*
Alice Kyle
*
Henrietta Lacks
*
Anna Maria Lane
*
Orra Henderson Moore Gray Langhorne
*
Irene Leache
*
Edna Lewis
*
Elizabeth D. Lewis
*
Matilda Lindsay
*
Judith Lomax
*
Rebecca Lovenstein
*
Louise O'Connor Lucas
*
Mary Tyler Cheek McClenahan
*
Dorothy S. McDiarmid
*
Sarah Madden
*
Dolley Madison
Dolley Todd Madison (née Payne; May 20, 1768 – July 12, 1849) was the wife of James Madison, the fourth president of the United States from 1809 to 1817. She was noted for holding Washington social functions in which she invited members of b ...
*
Pauline F. Maloney
*
Miriam D. Mann
*
Bessie N. Marshall
*
Lucy Randolph Mason
*
Vivian Carter Mason
*
Amaza Lee Meredith
*
Alice duPont Mills
*
Jane Minor
*
Nannie J. Minor
*
Lottie Moon
*
Undine Smith Moore
*
Georgia Weston Morgan
*
Irene Morgan
Irene Amos Morgan (April 9, 1917 – August 10, 2007), later known as Irene Morgan Kirkaldy, was an African-American woman from Baltimore, Maryland, who was arrested in Middlesex County, Virginia, in 1944 under a state law imposing racial segreg ...
*
Mary-Cooke Branch Munford
*
Elizabeth Nottingham
*
Opossunoquonuske
*
Elizabeth L. Otey
*
Mary Morton Parsons
*
Nina K. Peace
*
Mary Peake
*
Rebekah Peterkin
*
Marian Poe
*
Theresa Pollak
Theresa Pollak (August 13, 1899 – September 18, 2002) was an American artist and art educator born in Richmond, Virginia. She was a nationally known painter, and she is largely credited with the founding of Virginia Commonwealth University's ...
*
Amelia E. P. Pride
*
Orleana Puckett
*
Caroline F. Putnam
*
Mary Randolph
*
Jessie M. Rattley
*
Eudora Ramsay Richardson
*
Isabel Rogers
*
Wané Roonseraw
*
Dorothy Roy
*
Elizabeth Russell
*
Nellie Pratt Russell
Nellie Pratt Russell (May 4, 1890 - December 13, 1979) was an incorporator of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, the first sorority founded by African-American college women.
Earning undergraduate and graduate degrees at Howard University and Columbia ...
*
Marion duPont Scott
*
Mary Wingfield Scott
*
Eleanor P. Sheppard
*
Grace Sherwood
*
Catherine Filene Shouse
*
Henrietta Shuck
*
Jean Skipwith
*
Isabel Dodge Sloane
*
Louise J. Smith
*
Anne Spencer
*
Elizabeth Allen Smith
*
Annie Snyder
*
Ora B. Stokes
*
Kathryn H. Stone
*
Queena Stovall
*
Mary C. Stowers
*
Alice Jackson Stuart
*
Kate Peters Sturgill
*
Evelyn Reid Syphax
*
Elizabeth N. Tompkins
*
Amélie Rives Troubetzkoy
*
Lucile Barrow Turner
*
Lila Meade Valentine
*
Elizabeth Van Lew
*
Mary B. Wade
*
Mabel Lee Walton
*
Melissa Warfield
*
Laura Martin Wheelwright
*
Edith Bolling Wilson
*
Jean Wood
*
Helen Wood
*
Temperance Flowerdew Yeardley
*
Martha Anne Woodrum Zillhardt
References
External links
*
Virginia Women's Monument Commission
{{DEFAULTSORT:Virginia Women's Monument
Buildings and structures in Richmond, Virginia
Monuments and memorials in Virginia
Monuments and memorials to American women
2019 sculptures
Outdoor sculptures in Virginia
2019 in Virginia
History of women in Virginia