The Gender of Statues

Looking for some interesting trivia on statues? Well, you're in luck! A recent Washington Post article has provided just that:

Of the 5,193 public outdoor sculptures of individuals in the United States, only 394, or less than 8 percent, are of women, compared with 4,799 of men, according to the Smithsonian American Art Museum's Art Inventories Catalog.

The first U.S. statue of a celebrated woman was not erected until 1884 in New Orleans, according to the Smithsonian records; it depicts Margaret Haughery, who devoted her life to the care and feeding of the poor.

[Between 1860 and 1959], statues of 170 women were erected, although art historians point out that this celebrating is largely generic, similar to the Greek- and Roman-era statues that honor the female form with anonymous figures... Between 1960 and today, the Smithsonian records show, 184 public statues of individual women were installed in the United States, and 1,440 male statues were erected during the same period. [I'm just waiting for someone to write a letter to the paper saying "Oh so female statues are 'installed', but male statues are 'erected'. I don't like the phallocentric text of this article. Haha.]

After a nine-year effort, the Vietnam Women's Memorial in Washington was finally dedicated in 1993. Diane Evans, a founder of the memorial (and an Army first lieutenant and head nurse in Vietnam), said that bringing it to fruition did not happen easily. She explained, "We were told by J. Carter Brown, the head of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., that a woman's statue would upset the delicate balance of tension at the Vietnam Memorial."

FYI, this statue is off the beaten path and most people don't even pass by it. 

In the Capitol's National Statuary Hall, in which each state gets to pick and showcase two statues of distinguished individuals from their state, there are only 9 statues that depict women. As in 9 out of 100. The Hall was designated by Congress in 1864. The first female statue appeared in 1905. Three (of those nine) female statues have been added since 2003.
The states that showcase a female statue include (in order of the date they added the statue): Illinois, Minnesota, Colorado, Wyoming, Washington, Montana, North Dakota, Nevada, and Alabama. I guess the West knows what's up (kind of...). Speaking of which, did you know that Wyoming was the first U.S. state to grant suffrage to women, in 1869? Also, in 1924, they became the first state to elect a female governor. Furthermore, Wyoming had the first women serve on a jury, the first female court bailiff, and the first female justice of the peace in the country (all happened in 1870).
Did you know that the first woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives was Jeannette Rankin, from Montana, in 1916? (One of Montana's statues in the Statuary Hall is of Jeannette Rankin). And since I know you're now dying to know, the first female elected to the U.S. Senate was Hattie Caraway, from Arkansas, in 1932. The first woman to serve in the U.S. Senate was Rebecca Felton, of Georgia, in 1922. She was appointed by the governor after a senator died. She was more just a seatholder until the special election was held to elect a new senator. She served as Senator for one day. This is the shortest term in the Senate ever. Oh yeah, and she was a white supremacist. I'm glad you asked.