A sculpture crafted by a Ridgefield woman has been unveiled in for New York’s Central Park. Meredith Bergmann’s sculpture of Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Sojourner Truth was chosen from 91 submissions.
The 14-foot-tall monument was unveiled on the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the amendment that enshrined women's right to vote in the U.S. Constitution. The bronze sculpture is the 167-year-old park's first monument honoring historical heroines - as opposed to fictional female characters like Alice in Wonderland and Shakespeare's Juliet.
Bergmann hopes her latest work will make a statement about the need to recognize the contributions of women.
There had been a moratorium on erecting any new statues in Central Park. But in 2014, a volunteer, nonprofit group called Monumental Women, made up of women’s rights advocates, historians and community leaders, set out to break what they’ve called the “bronze ceiling” and develop a statue depicting real women. T
he FDR Hope Memorial on Roosevelt Island in Manhattan features two statues Bergmann created of the late President Franklin D. Roosevelt in a wheelchair and a young girl with crutches, greeting one another. The memorial is supposed to be an inspiration to people struggling with all forms of disability, in a location once called Welfare Island — a stretch of land with a long past that included a prison and a smallpox hospital.
