COLLECTION NAME:
Visual Resources Teaching Collection
mediaCollectionId
ArtArtHiAAH~7~7
Visual Resources Teaching Collection
Collection
true
Image Record ID:
aahi0000425
image_record_id
aahi0000425
Image Record ID
false
Work Title (display):
The Suffragettes: Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902), Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906) and Lucretia Mott (1793-1880)
Image Title:
total from the front
Work Description:
gift from the women of the US on Feb. 15, 1921, birthday of Susan B. Anthony
Work Dates (display):
1921
Work Dates type:
creation
Work Creator (display):
Adelaide Johnson (American, 1859-1955)
Work Creator gender:
female
work_creator_or_agent_gender
female
Work Creator gender
false
Work Creator notes (display):
Adelaide Johnson was the sculptor of the monument to the woman's movement that stands in United States Capitol. Somewhat eccentric in the fashion of her time, intrigued by spiritualism and the occult, Johnson often attracted dramatic publicity. But her portrait busts of suffragists and feminists gave women a physical and artistic embodiment of their own historical significance during a time when such public recognition was scarce. Johnson was born in Plymouth, Illinois; her father, Christopher William Johnson, was a farmer from Indiana. Her mother, Margaret Huff (Hendrickson) Johnson came from Kentucky. It was the third marriage for each; Adelaide, originally named Sarah Adeline, was the first child of their union. She had several older siblings from the previous marriages, as well as a younger brother and sister. Johnson was educated in country schools and in her teens studied art at the St. Louis School of Design, boarding with and older half brother. In 1877 she was awarded first and second prizes at a state exposition in competition with professional wood carvers. A year later, manifesting a dramatic flair exhibited throughout her life, she changed her name to Adelaide. While studying in Chicago and supporting herself by decorating and wood carving, she fell down an elevator shaft in the Central Music Hall, breaking her hip. She used the $15,000 obtained from a casualty suit to finance her study of sculpture in Europe. in 1883, Johnson studied painting in Dresden, then, in 1884, moved on to Rome, becoming a pupil of Giulio Monteverde. She studied with him for eleven years and maintained a studio in Rome for the next twenty-five; at various times in her career Johnson had studios in Carrara, London, New York, Chicago, and Washington. Johnson developed a feminist perspective early. Perceiving feminism as the greatest revolutionary force in history and "the mightiest thing in the evolution of humanity," she saw it as her mission to record and immortalize the history of the movement. She began this life work by exhibiting busts of suffragists Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony, and of the pioneer physician Caroline B. Winslow, at the Woman's Pavilion of the World's Colombian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. On Jan. 29, 1896, Johnson married Alexander Frederick Jenkins, an English businessman She falsified her age on the marriage certificate, listing it as twenty-four, one-year younger than her husband, though she was actually thirty-six. Married in her Washington studio, with busts of Anthony and Stanton serving as "bridesmaids," the couple was united by a woman minister and became Mr. and Mrs. Johnson. The groom, like Johnson, was a vegetarian and a spiritualist; he took her name as "the tribute love pays to genius." Their marriage, however, was characterized by long separations in which Johnson felt that her husband had lost the spiritual consciousness they had shared. In 1908 she obtained a divorce, retaining much bitterness about their relationship. ohnson had a lifelong dream of creating a gallery and Museum to house the history of the woman's movement. Lacking public support and funding, she eventually regarded her home studio in Washington, D.C., as the locus of this Museum. She also hoped that the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) would underwrite the costs of a woman's monument for the United States Capitol. In 1904 differences with Susan B. Anthony, who opposed the placement of a monument in the Capitol, preferring the Library of Congress, caused a disruption in their friendship and in Johnson's relationship with NAWSA. She turned then to New York suffragist Alva Belmont of the National Woman's party, and later secured a commission for the national monument. Her seven-ton sculpture of white Carrara marble, "The Woman Movement," containing portrait busts of Mott, Stanton, and Anthony, was presented to the nation on behalf of American women by the National Woman's party, which had financed and lobbied for it, on Anthony's birthday, Feb. 15, 1921. The reception for Johnson on that day was the first ever given for a woman in the Capitol building. In 1936, Johnson's sculpture of Anthony used as the model for the three cent postage stamp commemorating the sixteenth anniversary of woman suffrage. Johnson was a supporter of numerous women's organizations. A founder and lifelong member of the National And International Councils of Women, she was also a charter member of the Lyceum club, founded in London in 1904, and its American organizer. She held a "veteran's certificate" from NAWSA. Throughout her life Johnson spoke on the topic of the woman's rights movement, though her perspective was inspirational rather than political. Speaking on Anthony's birthday in 1934, she referred to "the awakening of woman" as "the central and supreme fact in the world of today." After the 1930s, Johnson's career declined. Financial problems, which had always beset her, became worse, and she relied for support on family and friends. Unable, and often unwilling, to sell her sculpture because she considered the prices offered an affront, she faced eviction and sale of her home to pay taxes. In 1939, frustrated and convinced that her dream of a studio-Museum would never be realized, she mutilated many of her sculptures and called in the press to witness the destruction. There she denied indignantly that she intended to arouse sympathy, she benefited from public generosity and from the intervention of Congressman Sol Bloom of New York who prevented her eviction. Efforts to pass a bill through Congress granting her $25,000 were unsuccessful, however. Financial distress and ebbing strength caused her to move in with friends on Capitol Hill about 1947. Attempting to raise money to repurchase her home, she appeared on several television quiz programs and won prize money, but to no avail. Seeing that advanced age could convey special privilege, she reversed her earlier falsificaton, made herself twleve years older than she was, and celebrated every birthday from "100" to "108" with friends and newspaper publicity. Johnson died in Washington in 1955, at the age of 96, of a stroke. Her Capitol sculpture remains the only national monument to the woman's movement. ( accessed 2007-09-24)
Work Style Period:
20th century
work_styleperiod
20th century
Work Style Period
false
Work Subject:
women (female humans)
subject
women (female humans)
Work Subject
false
Work Subject:
monuments, historical
subject
monuments, historical
Work Subject
false
Work Subject:
Mott, Lucretia (1793-1880)
subject
Mott, Lucretia (1793-1880)
Work Subject
false
Work Subject:
Anthony, Susan B. (1820-1906)
subject
Anthony, Susan B. (1820-1906)
Work Subject
false
Work Subject:
Stanton, Elizabeth Cady (1815-1902)
subject
Stanton, Elizabeth Cady (1815-1902)
Work Subject
false
Work Subject:
feminists
subject
feminists
Work Subject
false
Work Subject:
feminism
subject
feminism
Work Subject
false
Work Subject:
suffragists
subject
suffragists
Work Subject
false
Work Subject:
suffragettes
subject
suffragettes
Work Subject
false
Work Subject:
portraits
subject
portraits
Work Subject
false
Work Worktype:
statues
work_type
statues
Work Worktype
false
Work Worktype:
sculpture (visual works)
work_type
sculpture (visual works)
Work Worktype
false
Work Category (VRC classification):
sculptures and installations
work_category__ucbaahvrc_classification_
sculptures and installations
Work Category (VRC classification)
false
Work Material and Technique (display):
marble
Work Measurements (display):
7 ft (H) x 5.8 ft (W) x 5 ft (D)
Work Inscription (display):
Signed
Work Location (Repository or Site) name:
Capitol Rotunda (United States Capitol, Washington, D.C.)
Work Location (Repository or Site) role:
repository
Work Location (Repository or Site) refid type:
accession
Work Location (Geographic) name:
Washington, D.C.
Image Rights (display):
© Ronald Wiedenhoeft. Licensed for educational use via Scholars Resource: Saskia, Ltd.
Image Rights license agreement:
SASKIA, LTD.: WHO CAN USE THIS SOFTWARE: (a) Licensee, including faculty, staff and currently enrolled students may use the Licensed Software to display and or print the corresponding graphic images without limitation for teaching and research purposes at the defined Sites, or at remote locations having electronic access to your Site(s). (b) This license include permission to use the Licensed Software on a multi-user network at the defined Site, and to permit remote access to a computer/server located at your Site. Simultaneous display in multiple locations at or connected to the Site is also permitted. (c) Licensee agrees to employ reasonable security measures designed to limit access to your faculty, staff and currently enrolled students. PROHIBITED USES AND LIMITATIONS: (a) Saskia hereby reserves all rights not expressly granted herein. (b) the License Software may not be used for preparaiton of any publication, scholarly or otherwise; or for any purpose other than teaching or research. Publication of an image from the Licensed Software requires a separate license from Saskia. (c) Licensee agrees not to resell, lease, transfer, sub-license or otherwise distribute a copy of the Licensed Software, or any image taken from the Licensed Software, in whole or in part. (d) Licensee also agrees not to modify, corrupt or alter any digital image graphic content or "digital watermark" or the like in the software provided by Saskia under this Agreement. (e) Licensee agrees not to remove, alter, cover or distort Saskia's copyright notice, trademark, or other proprietary rights notice placed by Saskia in the Licensed Software itself, or in the associated packaging, media or documentation. (f) And Licensee agrees to notify users of the Licensed Software, in writing or by sign-on screen display, of their obligations under this Agreement and solicit their cooperation and compliance with such obligations.
Work Rights (display):
public domain
Terms of Agreement and Conditions of Use:
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Holding Institution:
University of Colorado at Boulder
Collection:
Art and Art History Visual Resources Center
Collection info and contact:
For information about this collection, see