Acceptable Activists, Absence, and Antifeminists : A Feminist Historical Critique of National Statuary Hall
Date
2023-05Author
Stish, Jordan
Advisor(s)
Frei, Cheryl Jimenez
Wegner, Joanne Jahnke
Pha, Kong Pheng
Mann, John W.W.
Wegner, Joanne Jahnke
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
In recent years, debates surrounding monuments and the messages they transmit through public space have exploded. A public, cultural conversation has emerged about monuments, collective memory, systemic racism, and societal values, not just in the United States, but globally. While academic conversations about monuments and their meanings have been present in the fields of history and art history since the 1990s, specific analysis about gender representation in the monumental landscape has only just begun. This thesis will examine National Statuary Hall and the monuments within it at the United States Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., the capital city that serves as both the political and commemorative core of the nation. By analyzing government legislation, lobbying records, Congressional reports, and other primary sources, I argue that Statuary Hall is a site of State-constructed monumental antifeminism. The existing monuments of women in Statuary Hall when it reached its capacity of 100 represented a constructed image of patriotic femininity reflecting specific images of an idealized American woman in the national narrative. Through primary source analysis, I examine how lobbyists and legislators at the state and federal level utilized constrictive ideas of gender norms to shape the legacies and histories of specific women to construct a core narrative of patriotism, loyalty to the State, and an ‘acceptable’ female activist within the Hall. I also examine the silences in Statuary Hall, particularly of feminist historical figures, to underscore my argument that the monuments within this national commemorative space have worked to present a specific narrative of the ‘ideal’ US-American woman, intended to serve as examples of virtue, patriotism, and acceptable feminine identity.
I focus on three primary case studies of monuments in Statuary Hall: Frances E. Willard of Illinois, Maria Sanford of Minnesota, and Sacajawea of North Dakota. My analysis includes an examination of the legislative decisions behind the creation of each monument, the iconography in the statues themselves, and the power of place in their location in the Capitol Building. In addition, I discuss the overall gender inequity of the Hall and critique the inclusion of monuments honoring documented antifeminists. Overall, I argue that by manipulating the legacies of activist women to fit a nationalist ideal, ignoring gender inequity at the site, and commemorating men who have promoted antifeminist ideals, legislators with the power to influence representation at Statuary Hall have contributed to the creation of a powerful commemorative space that diminishes women’s roles in the national narrative, constructs an image of an ideal American woman centered on strict gender norms and notions of patriotism, and creates a falsified and damaging legacy for women and their activism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Subject
Feminism--United States
National Statuary Hall (United States Capitol, Washington, D.C.)
Sanford, Maria Louise, 1836-1920--Statues
Willard, Frances E. (Frances Elizabeth), 1839-1898--Statues
Sakakawea--Statues
Sacajawea--Statues
Anti-feminism
Permanent Link
http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1793/84400Type
Thesis
Description
vii + 135 pages, color photographs, and references (pages 122-135).