Women on Pedestals

Updated February 21, 2017 | Factmonster Staff

Sojourner Truth Memorial Statue
Sojourner Truth

These are monumental women! Because of their achievements, their likenesses have been carved in stone for all to see and remember.

  • Who: Katharine Lee Bates, author of “America the Beautiful”
  • What: Six-foot-two-inch bronze statue showing her at the top of Pikes Peak, where she was inspired to write the song.
  • Where: Falmouth, Massachusetts, her birthplace.
  • Who: Mary McLeod Bethune, educator
  • What: Seventeen-foot bronze statue with arms outstretched to two young children and inscribed with the words, “I leave you love, I leave you hope…I leave you racial dignity.”
  • Where: Washington, D.C.
  • Who: Mary Ann Bickerdyke, Civil War relief worker for the North
  • What: A stone statue of “Mother Bickerdyke” giving a drink to a wounded soldier with an inscription of the base of the statue which says: “'She outranks me'—General Sherman.”
  • Where: Galesburg, Illinois.
  • Who: Alice Cogswell, first student at the first school for the deaf in the U.S.
  • What: A bronze statue of young Alice shows her signing the letter A with her teacher Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet.
  • Where: Gallaudet University, Washington, D.C.
  • Who: Jane Delano, founder of the Red Cross Nursing Service
  • What: A statute representing all nurses, named the Jane Delano Monument.
  • Where: Washington, D.C.
  • Who: Mary Dyer, martyr for religious freedom
  • What: A statue of Mary Dyer by Quaker artist Sylvia Shaw Judson.
  • Where: Boston, Massachusetts
  • Who: Amelia Earhart, pioneer aviator, called the “Golden Girl of Aviation”
  • What: A seven-foot-tall statue covered with gold leaf, with airplane propellers embedded in the base.
  • Where: North Hollywood, California
  • Who: Laura Haviland, Quaker abolitionist, founder of the Raisin Institute for fugitive slaves
  • What: A statue showing her seated with her book, A Woman's Life Work.
  • Where: Adrian, Michigan
  • Who: Mary Jemison was captured by Seneca Indians and then chose to stay with them. When she was 80 years old, she told of her adventures in the best-selling book The Life of Mary Jemison.
  • What: A life-size bronze statue.
  • Where: Castile, New York
  • Who: Mother Joseph, who established more than two dozen hospitals, schools, and orphanages in the Northwest.
  • What: A small bronze statue showing Mother Joseph kneeling in prayer.
  • Where: Vancouver, Washington
  • Who: Annie Louise Keller, who in 1927 risked her life to save a classroom full of children from a tornado.
  • What: A pink marble sculpture of her protecting a child.
  • Where: White Hall, Illinois
  • Who: Queen Liliuokalani, last queen of Hawaii
  • What: An eight-foot tall statue of her holding the constitution of Hawaii in one hand and a page of the traditional Hawaiian farewell song, “Aloha Oe,” which she wrote, in the other.
  • Where: Honolulu, Hawaii
  • Who: Sybil Ludington, 16-year-old Revolutionary War hero
  • What: Bronze statue showing her on horseback to portray her nighttime ride to warn soldiers.
  • Where: Carmel, New York
  • Who: Edith Graham Mayo, wife of the cofounder of the Mayo Clinic and its first nurse.
  • What: Small bronze statue showing Edith in her nurse's uniform.
  • Where: Rochester, Minnesota
  • Who: Annie Moore, 15-year-old from Ireland who was the first immigrant to pass through the receiving room at Ellis Island when it opened in 1892.
  • What: Bronze statue showing Annie with a satchel in her hand and a hopeful expression on her face.
  • Where: Ellis Island, New York Harbor, New York
  • Who: Esther Morris, who helped make Wyoming the first state to grant women the right to vote.
  • What: A shiny brass statue showing her as a young woman carrying flowers and a portfolio.
  • Where: Entrance to the Capitol Building, Cheyenne, Wyoming
  • Who: Annie Oakley (Phoebe Anne Mozee), famous Wild West sharpshooter
  • What: A life-size bronze statue showing her standing, holding her rifle by her side.
  • Where: Greenville, Ohio
  • Who: Lottie Holman O'Neill, first woman elected to the Illinois legislature.
  • What: Statue installed in a niche in the Capitol Building rotunda.
  • Where: Springfield, Illinois
  • Who: Pocahontas, who at the age of 10 helped the Jamestown colonists and saved the life of their leader, Captain John Smith.
  • What: A life-size outdoor statue showing her with open, helping arms.
  • Where: Jamestown, Virginia

The nation's first public statue of a First Lady was of Eleanor Roosevelt.

  • Who: Eleanor Roosevelt, First Lady, humanitarian
  • What: Eight-foot bronze statue of her as an older woman leaning against a rock.
  • Where: Riverside Park, New York City
  • Who: Florence Sabine, pioneering physician and advocate of public health laws
  • What: Replica of the bronze statue in the national Statuary Building which depicts her sitting on a lab stool with a microscope close at hand.
  • Where: Denver, Colorado

There are a record-breaking five statues of the brave Shoshoni guide Sacajawea erected throughout the U.S.

  • Who: Sacajawea, guide and scout for the Lewis and Clark expedition.
  • What: Twelve-foot bronze statue showing Sacajawea with her baby strapped to her back.
  • Where: Bismarck, North Dakota
  • Who: Maria Sanford, pioneer, educator, and civic leader
  • What: Seven-foot bronze statue with an inscription on the base calling her “the best known and best loved woman in Minnesota.”
  • Where: Statuary Hall, U.S. Capitol Building, Washington, D.C.
  • Who: Samantha Smith, ambassador for peace between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. when she was 10 years old. She died at age 13 in a plane crash while returning to Maine from Europe.
  • What: Bronze statue showing her posed with a dove of peace and proclaiming her “Maine's young ambassador of goodwill.”
  • Where: State Capitol, Augusta, Maine
  • Who: Statue of Liberty, the most famous symbolic statue of a woman, modeled after Marie Bartholdi, the sculptor's mother.
  • What: 151-foot copper figure of a woman draped in a loose robe, holding a torch in her uplifted right hand and a tablet with the date of the Declaration of Independence in Roman numerals in her left. Installed in 1886.
  • Where: Liberty Island, New York Harbor, New York
  • Who: Gertrude Stein, author
  • What: Bronze statue showing her seated in the way she once described herself as looking “like a great Jewish Buddha.”
  • Where: Bryant Park, New York
  • Who: Sojourner Truth, abolitionist
  • What: Bronze statue depicting her as an orator. She gave passionate speeches against slavery and for women's rights.
  • Where: Florence, Massachusetts, her home from 1843–1857
  • Who: We-no-nah, Indian woman who, according to legend, drowned rather than marry a warrior of her father's choice.
  • What: Bronze likeness showing her in a long dress with buckskin fringe and a traditional sun ornament on her left shoulder.
  • Where: Winona, Minnesota, the city named after her.
  • Who: Phillis Wheatley, famous slave poet
  • What: Bronze statue by Elizabeth Catlett, dedicated by black female poets.
  • Where: Jackson, Mississippi
  • Who: Emma Willard, women's educator.
  • What: Statue depicting her seated in her favorite chair with a book in her right hand.
  • Where: Outside the Emma Willard School, Troy, New York
  • Who: Women's Rights Leaders
  • What: A grouping of nineteen life-size bronze statues of women and men who attended the world's first women's rights convention. Among them are Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Jane Hunt.
  • Where: National Historical Park, Seneca Falls, New York
  • Who: Vietnam Women's Memorial
  • What: A sculpture portraying three Vietnam-era women, one is caring for a wounded soldier, another kneels with her head bowed, and the third searches the sky for airborne help.
  • Where: Washingtron, D.C.
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