Women helping women is how Adelaide Johnson rose to modest acclaim as a sculptor in the late 1890’s.
Known as the “sculptress of the women’s movement” Adelaide Johnson is best known for The Portrait Monument, a sculpture of suffragette leaders Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. Now displayed in the US Capital Rotunda, the work was copied after busts Johnson displayed at the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago.
The Portrait Monument was commissioned by the National Women’s Party to commemorate the passing of the 19th Amendment granting women the right to vote. The group had been Johnson’s benefactors for years – among her works were nine busts of Susan B. Anthony.
Johnson sculpted the three suffragette leaders resting upon an unfinished base to represent the idea that the work towards women’s equality remained unfinished. Ironically, some in the movement were outraged that the style wasn’t traditional.
Jane Addams presided over the dedication ceremony in February of 1921, a date designed to coincide with Anthony’s birthday. The inscription read “Woman first denied a soul, then called mindless, now arisen, declaring herself an entity to be reckoned.”
The next day, Congress ordered the inscription removed and the statue was placed in storage for most of the next 75 years.
In 1995, the 75th anniversary of the 19th amendment, a group of congresswomen called for the statue to be raised from the depths of the capital. Newt Gingrich, then Speaker of the House, refused to allocate the $75,000 needed to move the monument despite bi-partisan support. Private funds were raised and The Portrait Monument was finally moved to the Rotunda in 1997.
Sculptress Sarah Adeline Johnson was born in Illinois in 1859. Recognizing that she excelled at the art projects completed in her one-room schoolhouse, her family sent her to the St. Louis School of Design. The school, founded by progressive advocate Mary Henderson, strived to help employ women in the male-dominated commercial art business.
Post-graduation, the now more artistically named Adelaide opened a business in Chicago with fellow artist Ida Morgan. Specializing in decorative arts and interior design the business was thriving when an accident changed her life.
In 1882, then 23, she fell into an elevator shaft on the way to her studio. Her lengthy recovery left her with one leg shorter than the other and a settlement of $15,000. She used the money to study sculpture in Italy. Returning home, a chance encounter in 1886 at a National Women’s Suffrage meeting in Washington D.C. led to her first commission – sculpting Susan B. Anthony. Pleased with her work the NWP commissioned the busts of the three leaders for display in the Women’s Pavilion at the 1893 World’s Fair. These busts served as the models for her work on The Portrait Monument.
In 1896 Johnson married Frederick Jenkins, a British citizen 11 years her junior. In a show of progressive spirit, he took her family name as “the tribute love pays to genius.” Her bridesmaids were the busts of the suffragette leaders. They divorced in 1908.
The Portrait Monument represented the pinnacle of her success. Her later years saw her commissions and finances dwindle. She died in 1955 at the age of 96.