Pen-Elayne on the Web

Celebrating Women - 30 March 2004

With the announcement today that the Statue of Liberty will reopen this summer (see my post about this from last December 24, to which I can only add, I think it's criminal that $5.9 million of the $7 million needed had to come from private donations rather than the government), I thought I'd take a look at women immortalized in stone:

Women on Pedestals is a great place to start. The site lists 31 statues of women throughout the US, linking to bio pages (but, alas, not to pictures), and detailing where the statues are, their approximate size and primary materials used in their creation.

Going back through history, The Center for the Study of the Eurasian Nomads (CSEN) takes a look at Statues of Sauromatian and Sarmatian Women.

Here are some monuments and memorials to women warriors in the US. I'd rather peacemakers got more statues, but hey, if your nation is going to honor male warriors it's only appropriate to honor female ones as well.

The Nevada Women's History Project informs us that "Of the ninety-seven statues currently in Statuary Hall, only six are of women," and they ran a successful campaign designate Sarah Winnemucca as Nevada's second statue. They're currently raising funds to make this happen. I also think it's cool that NV's first statue (and only one so far) was sculpted by a woman.

Here's a history of the Queen Victoria statue in Ontario.

Here's a picture of the Britannia statue atop Town Hall in Liverpool, and here's one of Boudica and her two daughters at Westminster Bridge across from the Houses of Parliament.

This site makes an international and historical case for the placing of a Sculpture in Cardiff to celebrate & commemorate the start of the Womens March to Greenham Common in 1981. Very comprehensive (with lots of pictures of statues honoring women) but a bit hard on the eyes.

Here's some information on Marianne, the embodiment of the French Republic in the same way Britannia embodies Britain and the Statue of Liberty embodies the US. Here's more. Here are some pictures of the Mother Russia statue in Volgograd. Here's a photo of the Goddess of Democracy statue from the Tian'anmen Square movement of 1989. idea of liberty as a woman seems fairly popular. (Check out the bottom of this page for representations of the Statue of Liberty throughout the world.)

Lastly, check out the plans for the World's Tallest Woman, the Spirit of Houston.