Central Park Women's Suffrage Monument To Debut In August

CENTRAL PARK, NY — A monument depicting three leaders of the United States' women's suffrage movement will be revealed in Central Park in August, giving the park its first monument honoring a woman since it opened in the 1870s.

The statue, which depicts Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Sojourner Truth, will be revealed on Central Park's famed Literary Walk on Aug. 26, the New York Post first reported. The debut coincides with the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which extended voting rights to women.

An organization called the Monumental Women's Statue Fund launched its efforts to break Central Park's "Bronze Ceiling" in 2014. The group and the city announced plans to memorialize heroes of the women's suffrage movement in 2017. The statue will be the first new commemorative monument in Central Park since 1965.

Only four statues of the hundreds in the city's park system honor women from history: Joan of Arc and Eleanor Roosevelt in Riverside Park, Harriet Tubman in Harlem and Gertrude Stein in Bryant Park.

Designs for the monument were approved in October after sculptor Meredith Bergmann's initial design was modified to add Sojourner Truth to the monument. The decision to add Truth was made after an initial design — which had already been approved by the city — was criticized by activists and historians for "whitewashing" the women's suffrage monument.

Historians who criticized the statue fund's first design voiced concerns that the new statue would misrepresent Sojourner Truth's legacy after the redesign was revealed. The scholars said that although all three women fought for women's suffrage, they held widely different beliefs on issues such as whether black men should be allowed to vote. Historians also cast doubt on the historical accuracy of depicting Truth, Stanton and Anthony sitting around the same table.

Concerns about the new design forced the Public Design Commission to postpone an initial vote on the project in September.

Bergmann, the sculptor of the monument, maintained that the design is meant to portray a symbolic take on the history of the women's suffrage movement, not a specific moment in history.

The Monumental Women's Statue Fund raised $1.5 million to fund the statue's constrction.