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Virginia Women's Monument
The Virginia Women's Monument is a state memorial in Richmond, Virginia commemorating the contributions of Virginia women to the history of the Commonwealth of Virginia and the United States of America.[1] 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.[2] The monument was first proposed in 2009[3] and established by joint resolution of the Virginia General Assembly in 2010.[1] An 18-member commission, along with input from the Library of Virginia and professors of women's history, selected the women to be honored with statues sculpted by StudioEIS in Brooklyn, New York. 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.[4] The seven women were Cockacoeske, chieftain of the Pamunkey tribe; Anne Burras Laydon, Jamestown colonist; Mary Draper Ingles, frontierswoman and American pioneer; Elizabeth Keckley, seamstress and confidant of Mary Todd Lincoln; Laura Copenhaver, entrepreneur; Virginia Randolph, prominent educator; Adele Goodman Clark, suffragist and activist.[4] 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, inaugural first lady of the United States, were installed.[5][6] HistoryProposalThe idea for the monument came in 2009 from Richmond native Em Bowles Locker Alsop — a writer and former actress who had been considered for the role of Scarlett O'Hara in the 1939 film Gone with the Wind.[3][7] Alsop lobbied her state senator, Walter Stosch, who subsequently introduced Senate Joint Resolution No. 11 in the 2010 session of the Virginia General Assembly.[8] The joint resolution, which created the Virginia Women's Monument Commission, was passed unanimously in both the Virginia House of Delegates and Senate of Virginia.[9] In 2015, Alsop died at the age of 98, three years before the monument was first opened to the public.[7] From the text of Senate Joint Resolution No. 11:
The joint resolution established that the Virginia Women's Monument Commission would be composed of 19 members—the Governor, 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.[9] DesignThe 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.[2] 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.[10] 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.[11][5]
StatuesCurrent monument
Wall of HonorA further 230 women are listed on the Wall of Honor of the Monument; further nominations are currently being solicited.[12] List of honorees
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