The over 800 acres of Central Park in Manhattan feature nearly 30 statues of historical figures and literary characters. Though the park includes fictional female icons, including a representation of Alice in Wonderland, the park currently exhibits not a single historical female icon. That is, until now.
In 2020, in honor of the centennial anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, Central Park will reveal its new Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony Woman Suffrage Movement Monument. Together, Stanton and Anthony pioneered the women’s rights movement with their suffragist newspaper The Revolution and the National Woman Suffrage Association.
These feminist heroines not only championed womens’ right to vote, but also fought against many other symptoms of inequality, including domestic violence, sexual assault, and abortion.
The statue will also honor some of Anthony and Stanton’s activist colleagues, including Sojourner Truth, Lucy Stone, and Anna Howard Shaw. The new addition will bring a welcome diversity to the current roster of monuments, and it’s an inclusion that has been hard-fought. Hopefully, the monument will remind current and future generations of the vigor with which these women advocated for political equality and the story of the rights we now enjoy.
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And today we celebrate...