Monumental Women 2024 Moving History Forward Awards
Monumental Women, the all-volunteer non-profit group which broke the bronze ceiling in 2020 with the creation of the first statue of real women in the 167-year history of NYC Central Park, celebrated its 10th anniversary on September 30, 2024 with a reception and program at the Museum of Arts and Design in Manhattan. Since the unveiling of its Women’s Rights Pioneers Monument in Central Park on August 26, 2020, Monumental Women has been working across the country to assist in and celebrate the recognition of women in public spaces.
Before an enthusiastic crowd of supporters, Monumental Women honored individuals and groups who have made important contributions to expanding the knowledge and importance of Women’s History by presenting its annual “Moving History Forward Awards” at the event.
SHAINA TAUB
Two-time Tony Award-winning songwriter and performer. Currently starring in her musical Suffs on Broadway. Artist-in-residence at The Public Theater and a signed recording artist with Atlantic Records.
I’m so honored to receive this award, and send my apologies that I can’t be there to accept it in person. I’m very grateful for Monumental Women’s vital work ensuring that women are celebrated properly and permanently in public spaces in our country. In my research for my musical Suffs, I couldn’t believe how little I knew about the suffragists, and kept thinking – if only I had known about these women when I was growing up, I would have been so inspired by their brave example.
I’m proud to support Monumental Women in order to ensure that the next generation of girls get to grow up learning their history, so they can be empowered to change their future. Here’s to continuing to break the bronze ceiling! Thank you so much.
KATHY HOCHUL
Kathy Hochul is the 57th and first female Governor of New York State.
It is my pleasure to send greetings to everyone gathered for the Monumental Women’s 10th Anniversary Celebration.
Since its founding in 2014, Monumental Women has promoted increased awareness of women’s history by establishing sculptures of groundbreaking women in public places. Through educational outreach campaigns and art installations across numerous states, including the Women’s Rights Pioneers Monument in Central Park, Monumental Women invites people of all ages to deepen their understanding of women’s contributions to our country’s past.
Today, you come together for your 10th Anniversary Celebration, where you honor another year of outstanding success and acknowledge those who have demonstrated their commitment to your organization’s mission. I thank you for bestowing on me the 2024 Moving History Forward Award and join in recognizing these distinguished honorees. On behalf of all New Yorkers, I am grateful for your commitment to preserving our shared heritage.
Best wishes for an enjoyable event.
KAREN D. TAYLOR
Karen D. Taylor is the Founder and Executive Director of While We Are Still Here, driven by her passion to bring Harlem’s cultural history to the forefront and keep it relevant for future generations. She has consulted as the director of public history for Columbia University/Teachers College’s Harlem Education History Project and served as interim director for the Roundtable of Institutions of Color at NYU.
I remember my grandparents sitting in the kitchen nook talking about Father Divine, Bradhurst Avenue, Convent Avenue, Reverend Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., Hazel Scott, beautiful, glamourous men in dresses, sashaying in a queer parade, Jungle Alley aka Beale Street, and Marcus Garvey. I was child.
My grandparents were Rosalie Eloise Jordan Hinds and Joseph Archibald Reese. They were Barbadian immigrants who met each other and fell in love on Ellis Island but went to 145th Street and 134th Street, respectively, during the Harlem Renaissance, before they reunited and married, and, ultimately, had my mother, Eleanor. They all instilled in me a love of culture and history. I inherited Harlem as their legacy. My grandparents’ kitchen nook stories planted the seeds that grew into my love for Harlem, the place of my birth, though not of my rearing.
It is an honor to receive the Moving History Forward Award and I thank Pam Elam and Monumental Women for recognizing the work of While We Are Still Here. I owe any success that the organization has achieved to my grandparents and my mother. I could not have moved forward in an attempt to hold Harlem’s history, to hold my peoples’ history, had it not been for overhearing those kitchen nook talks between Gramma and Grampa. I hold those memories in high reverence. Finally, I would like to thank my people for their tenacity, for their insistence, for never giving up. To my sons, Chenzira and Siyaka, thank you for choosing me as your mother.
JENNIFER LEMAK
Chief Curator of History, New York State Museum
Thank you very much to Pam, Brenda, Coline, and all of Monumental Women for this honor. It has been such a pleasure to work with you over this past decade – I am in awe of the important work you all have accomplished and the work you continue to do. I cherish our partnership and consider the New York State Museum the Monumental Women’s Upstate outpost.
In 2017 we included the plans and fundraising efforts for your Central Park statue in our centennial suffrage exhibit. In 2018 we exhibited a maquette from the design contest and in the midst of Covid we collected a few of the Women’s Rights Pioneer monument molds for the collection, and just last year, Monumental Women raised money to commission a 1/3 size Women’ Rights Pioneer sculpture for the State Museum’s collections. This popular display allows us to interpret so many nationally significant New York stories, not just the women depicted in the monument, but also a group of scrappy women (and some enlightened men) who refused to take no for an answer when they dared propose a statue of real women in Central Park – gasp! The fact that this story will be able to be told in Albany for future generations of New Yorkers is pretty damn cool.
I would also like to thank my colleague and friend, Senior Historian, and curator Ashley Hopkins-Benton – she is smart, capable, and totally gets it. You would think that it would be a no-brainer to collect, document, and display women’s history at the NYS Museum – after all, our neighbor and ultimate boss, is the first female Governor of NYS. Yet, I can’t tell you how many times I walked into Ashley office in full-blow excitement about something dealing with women’s history – oh my gosh, can you believe this is happening? This is so good for the Museum! With the next breath – how are we going to get this approved? So, we put our heads together and figure out how to navigate the personalities and bureaucracy so we can make the State Museum a better place for everyone.
Lastly, I would like to thank my family, my husband Brian – one of my biggest supporters – and my children, India, Duncan, and Macy. And my mother who set the bar high and gave me the tools and support to reach it. Thank you.
ASHLEY HOPKINS-BENTON
Senior Historian/Curator, New York State Museum
First, I will add to Jennifer’s appreciation—we are so grateful to Monumental Women, and especially Pam, Brenda, and Coline, for your collaboration and friendship over the years. From the beginning, they generously offered up their knowledge, experience, connections, and artifacts in support of our exhibition work in Albany, and then kept us in the fold as work progressed in New York City. The ongoing partnership between the New York State Museum and Monumental Women has strengthened both organizations’ work to highlight and uplift women’s history.
I would also like to thank my family, friends, and colleagues, for their time, words of encouragement, and activism, all of which have supported and pushed forward my own work on women’s history. My husband, Geoff, has picked up the slack when I’ve travelled, been a sounding board for ideas and writing, and has stepped up research on previously under-documented populations, including women, in his own museum work. Our daughter, Katherine, who is here with me tonight, and son, James, constantly remind me why this work is important. As they move through the world, I see anew the inequities that persist, and am reminded of the value of knowing where we’ve come from, and of learning the stories of the brave women who fought before us.
MARY ANNE TRASCIATTI
Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition
Mary Anne Trasciatti is Director of Labor Studies and Professor of Rhetoric at Hofstra University as well as president of Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition.
Thank you, Celeste. It’s great be here with you this evening (we were supposed to teach together at the UALE summer school for labor women this past August, but I got COVID and couldn’t make it.) I am honored to receive the Moving History Forward award from the formidable and fabulous Monumental Women. And to share the award with the equally formidable and fabulous LuLu LoLo.
The women in my family have a history of working in the fashion industry. My grandmother worked in a pants factory; my mom worked in a dress factory; and my daughter works for Louis Vuitton. I’m involved with the industry too, but in a slightly different way.
For the past 12 years I have had the privilege of presiding over the board of directors of RTFC. We are an all-volunteer non-profit whose mission is to educate the public about the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. Every year, on the anniversary of the fire, March 25, we work with labor unions, the FDNY, NYU, and various community groups, to organize the commemoration ceremony and other activities. Throughout the year, we work to raise public awareness about the fire and explore its continuing relevance for worker rights and workplace safety through various art and education projects. We also provide resources about the fire for teachers and promote the work of organizations that advocate for worker rights and safety in the US and around the globe.
In 2023 the Coalition, along with the NYC CLC, Workers United-SEUI, the State of NY, and other supporters, dedicated a beautiful memorial at the site of the fire – the Brown Building in Greenwich Village (now an NYU science building). The Triangle Fire Memorial honors the 146 workers who died in the blaze – most of them Italian and Jewish immigrant women, some as young as 14 — and recalls the movements for social and economic justice that were born of or galvanized by this terrible and preventable tragedy. It is NYC’s first labor memorial and one of a handful of monuments in the city to women. I had the honor and privilege of leading the memorial project– it is one of the best things I have ever done.
Sadly, although the Triangle fire happened over 100 years ago, worker exploitation and workplace deaths in NYC and around the US and the world are not a thing of the past. And women, especially immigrant working-class women are still not treated with the dignity and respect they deserve. This is why the Triangle story still matters. This is why the Coalition built the memorial. This is why we do all the other work that we do. And why I do the work the work that I do. To honor the memory of my grandmother, my mother, and all the hard working women who came before me and who stand alongside me – including all of you; and to make a better world for my daughter and all the women who will come after me. Thank you to Monumental Women for recognizing the value of that work and for supporting it in so many ways.
LULU LOLO PASCAL
Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition
LuLu LoLo is a Founding Board Member of the Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition, a visual/performance artist, and a playwright/actor.
I want to thank the Board of Directors of Monumental Women for this special recognition. I am extremely honored to be receiving the “Moving History Forward Award” for the Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition and for the 146 mostly young immigrant Jewish and Italian women who perished in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire in 1911.
I am honored to share this award with Mary Ann Trasciatti. We have worked together for twelve years and finally dedicated the Triangle Memorial in October of 2023.
To be receiving this award from Labor Union Leader Celeste Kirkland is a wonderful connection to the 1909 “Uprising of the 20,000”, when women factory workers went on strike over unsafe working conditions
Special thank you to Pam Elam and Brenda Berkman. Pam, we have shared a bond since 2015 about the lack of monuments to women in New York City. Pam and Brenda, Mary Anne and I greatly appreciate your very sage advice and support over the years for the Triangle Memorial.
A special shout out to Gale Brewer for her support for the Triangle Memorial, we couldn’t have done it without her.
Today September 30 is a special day for me. It’s the birthdate of my mother, East Harlem Community Activist Rose Pascale who passed away in 2009. Rose was the daughter of Italian immigrants, she had to leave high school to work in a factory but then went on to work for three Manhattan Borough Presidents and devoted her life to the East Harlem Community and the support of the rights of women.
I grew up knowing about the Triangle fire, I can still hear my father’s voice filled with anger saying: “They locked the doors.”
Happy Tenth Anniversary Monumental Women!
JESSIE STEIGERWALD
LexSeeHer
Jessie Steigerwald, founder of LexSeeHer, Inc., is a Lexington-based artist, writer, and civic organizer who also practices law.
I’d like to share how LexSeeHer arrived at this moment and share my thanks to the circles of people who made it happen.
My mom always says, you drop a pebble in the water and the ripples flow, and we are one of your ripples. No question about it, we are grateful to all of you at Monumental Women, some who we are meeting for the first time tonight. And, especially, Pam, Brenda, and Namita, who each offered so much support and encouragement to LexSeeHer. There are so many “No!”s. You can steel yourself, but there are days where it really is quite frustrating.
We also would not have been successful without our team. We’re not really a hierarchical team. Leslie Masson is our treasurer and lead researcher on Margaret Tulip, who won her freedom through a court case in 1769. We were sharing Margaret’s story at the time when Breonna Taylor and George Flloyd were in all of our minds and hearts. Margaret’s story unfolds through court documents, including depositions, giving additional insight into women in our community.
On the research front, Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe was an incredible resource for us. A new family for me, one that formed in 2020, is my Radcliffe Circle sisters. We went to college together, but didn’t know each other until March 2020: Sue, Katie, Michelle, Jenny Lyn, Namita, I’m so glad that we are here together. They encouraged me a lot of the bad weeks, and listened.
A new family that I formed was with the Bergmanns. Meredith Bergmann’s artistry, both for me, personally, as well as for our team, made it worth continuing. Meredith’s design was beyond anything we could have imagined. We asked for three women, and she gave us this idea. We wanted three women and an empty pedestal with names on it to commemorate more women. Meredith gave us engaging and moving portraits of more than 20 women and girls, from young girls to a seasoned suffragist who’s 92 years old in the monument. This meant we could be much more inclusive. The monument does not have a token Black woman, it includes multiple women’s experiences around the intersection of race and gender, including Black women from the 1700s who were free, or enslaved, or sued for their freedom, and more contemporary Asian women. Meredith also warned us, even with 20 women represented, ‘you’ll see it’s still not enough’, which was true, still not enough.
Martha Wood is, for me, a personal sail in the wind, breaking the way for so many of us in our community. She’s done more than – I won’t say how many decades of service – but if anyone knows how to navigate to move things forward in the Birthplace of American Liberty, it’s Martha… I think she’s our Gail Brewer, from what I’m hearing tonight.
Kamala Raj is here with her daughter. Kamala radiates welcome wherever she goes, weaving people together. You likely met her tonight as she’s always ready to make a new friend and connect someone to the LexSeeHer initiatives.
And then my family. I see in my daughter Julia, and my son, Zack, that we’re raising feminist, humanist children for the next generation. They’re dealing with major issues – maternal health mortality, abortion access being cut off and denied. Some are turning to medicine, and some are looking at climate change and how to keep the climate alive.
I think making women visible is part of the answer to our most critical issues. I think if we had only shown and celebrated women in the built environment the whole time, it would have underscored that women – more than half of our population – must have human rights, and a voice in setting policies in every area.
I will close with an invitation for all of you to come to historic Lexington. We are the “Birthplace of American Liberty.” It’s about to be the 250th anniversary of America’s founding. You can now come to Lexington and learn the story differently. Because we now show and celebrate that there were women right there – and their contributions were an important part of the story.
The monument exquisitely portrays the way women contributed economically, politically, intellectually, socially, and culturally.
And the monument stands right in the heart of the historic district. In the years when we fought for permission to have the monument, our opponents told us we should look for some place less visible. Literally, this was said in a public meeting. These are comments made in public meetings: we shouldn’t have women on sacred ground. (The site is across from an ice cream store and by the Visitors Center.) They told us that women had nothing to do with the Battle of Lexington or the American Revolution, and these were women who were leaders in our community.
In the end, we were successful. And so what it really says to all of us, is: “PERSIST”, which Meredith put in the monument so we won’t forget. When “Something Must Be Done”, we can go do it, if we do it together. We need the layering of the full actual collaboration with friends who are willing to go through the hard times, and then friends who are just there to love you, which is great, and then family. So thank you, Julie and Zack, my mom, Corinne, who is not here, and Matt.
My mom, who was a teacher first, raised me to see what people need is attention, acceptance and appreciation. It’s so true.
On my way to come here, I said, “Mom, I know external validation is not what it’s about, but it’s really nice to have.” Thank you.
CELESTE FREEMAN
LexSeeHer
Celeste Freeman is a dedicated educator based in Lexington, MA, with a 25-year career grounded in Social and Racial Justice principles.
I want to thank Monumental Women for honoring our LexSeeHer team. It is truly humbling to be in the company of our fellow honorees tonight. I’d also like to thank our Leadership team members here tonight, Leslie, Kamala, and Martha.
Tonight, would not be possible without your countless hours of hard work, generosity, and dedication to completing this project.
Several years ago, when I was asked to be part of a volunteer group to build the first monument to women in Lexington, I had no idea that I would be joining a such a vibrant community of women from diverse backgrounds—all sharing a common goal of battling the erasure of women from events large and small in our community of Lexington and beyond.
In one of our first meetings as volunteers we were asked to share why we wanted to be part of this work. I responded by telling the group that as a Black woman from the Atlanta, my high school bus drove down Margaret Mitchell Blvd daily (she is the author of Gone with The Wind) and passed various tributes to the Confederacy. I also remember a teenager sometimes clinching in anger at the invisibility of the hands that built my home state of Georgia. I felt their erasure viscerally.
So, for me one of the women featured in the sculpture, Margaret Tulip, a formerly enslaved women who successfully sued for her freedom has become a full circle moment. We’ve been able to locate some of Margaret’s descendants who were unaware of this part of their story. In fact, the model for Margaret’s hands is those of a young descendant.
We’ve also heard from descendants of other women in the monument who had no idea their ancestor was an aviator or contributed something important to the community.
We hope the stories of these unsung heroines inspires a new generation, as the work of Monumental Women has kept our team inspired both to start and to keep going. Again, thank you for this recognition.
MICHELLE TRAN
LexSeeHer
Michelle Tran is the Vice President of Operations and Secretary of LexSeeHer. She is a Radiologist with a Medical Degree from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
I am truly grateful for this incredible honor. I am so happy that we were able to recognize women who have long been overlooked.
With our monument, we highlighted a diverse range of women’s stories throughout history and honored their invaluable contributions. It has been a wonderful opportunity to bring their stories to the forefront and make sure these women receive the acknowledgement they deserve
What makes this monument even more special is the collaboration among women working together to create something extraordinary. In addition to honoring women from the past, the monument also represents our collective strength and what we can achieve when united for a common purpose. It has been incredible to see what women working with women can accomplish together.
I’m so proud of the LexSeeHer Women’s Monument and look forward to the work we will continue to do to recognize women’s contributions.
Thank you so very much for this great honor.
Monumental Women inspired us at LexSeeHer to build the first monument to women in Lexington and to bring women’s stories to the forefront.
Thank you for being the trailblazer in recognizing women’s achievements.
PAM ELAM
Founders Award
Founder of Monumental Women
It’s not often that you have the chance to be part of something truly historic. Monumental Women is proud that our all-volunteer, not-for-profit group has broken the bronze ceiling in NYC’s Central Park. – 167 years without a statue of a real woman until we came along.
It is not easy to donate a Work of Art to the City of New York even though you are doing something that the City should have already done. Nor is it easy to take the long bureaucratic roller-coaster ride which traveled through the Parks Department, the Central Park Conservancy, the Public Design Commission, the Landmarks Preservation Commission, and every single Community Board surrounding Central Park.
Step by step, meeting by meeting, argument by argument, we crossed the minefield which is New York City Government and won all the necessary approvals. We raised all the money and we came in on budget and on time in the middle of a pandemic. If an all-volunteer, non-profit group can do that, Why Can’t New York City?
Now we’re ready to cross that minefield again with our new Augusta Savage Initiative. So, watch out New York, we’re not done yet! Because the bottom line to creating tributes in our public spaces is that we etch a message written in stone or shaped in bronze that equality applies to everyone and history includes us all.
MYRIAM MIEDZIAN
Founders Award
Founder of Monumental Women
When I first got involved in a movement to put a statue of a woman in Central Park, women’s most common response when I told them about it, was: I never noticed there were no statues of women in the park.
I was not surprised by that. I had never noticed it either.
What happened in 2013 that got me to notice it ? The answer is an enormous statue of 14th century Polish King Jagiello on his horse, that Gary and I walked by when entering the park on the Eastside and went South. What the hell is this 14th century Polish king doing in Central Park I kept asking, What are the criteria for putting a statue in the Park we started wondering. The main criteria turned out to be being male. We found 23 statues celebrating men, not one celebrating a woman.
It is not surprising that so many of us women never noticed the statues were all of men. We were used to being invisible. Men were presidents senators, artists. etc. Even God was male. Schools did hardly any thing to change this. Women’s history gets a paragraph here and there.
After writing an oped, entitled TIME TO REMEMBER THE LADIES — IN CENTRAL PARK. Gary and I formed a committee devoted to making that happen. When we mentioned this to our friend Cindy Cooper , she responded you’ve got to get Pam Elam on the committee. We did.
Pam eventually became President of Monumental Women. and has played a key role in its unprecedented success.
We also invited Coline —Elizabeth Cady Stanton’ great great granddaughter to join our board. Coline became a major spokeswoman for the cause. Gary will tell you about that.
Gary’s work with non-profits helped build our membership and raise funds necessary to its existence.
As I see it, my most important contribution besides being the co-founder, has been using my skills as a writer and researcher to respond again and again to comments critical of our enterprise.
Our statue represents an important step in making women more visible and rendering people aware of women’s achievements.
The political implications of this growing awareness are of utmost importance. In 2016 62 % of working class women , and 45 % of women with college degrees voted for Trump.
They preferred an unqualified, ignorant, sexist megalomaniac to a woman described by Obama as the most highly qualified person ever to run for president. In contrast with the huge excitement among black people about Barack Obama as the first black president, Excitement about Hilary Clinton as the first woman president was minimal.
Very long standing second class citizenship and invisibility have left many women more critical of other women than of men. Studies indicate that college women give better evaluations to male professors than to female professors. On some deep level women still perceive women as underachievers.
With the candidacy of Kamala Harris we are witnessing the beginnings of a different mind set. Our statue is one of several factors that have played a role in this change.
GARY FERDMAN
Founders Award
Founder of Monumental Women
I guess this award officially makes me a SUFFRAGENT – part of a long tradition of men committed to women’s rights including woman suffrage. While the most important impact of breaking the bronze ceiling is to elevate women and provide young women with role models and aspirations, including public office, our monument and the statues we have inspired around the country, are making men and boys more aware of women’s accomplishments.
As Myriam points out, women’s history is largely ignored in our schools. According to a 1909 study led by Pauline Steinem, “The impression conveyed by our text books is that this world has been made by men and for men and the ideals they are putting forth are colored by masculine thought…. Our text books on Civics do not show the slightest appreciation of the significance of the ‘woman’s movement” Nothing much has changed since Gloria Steinem’s suffragist grandmother made this statement.
Of course the Suffragists knew that they had to get men’s support in order to win the vote, so they devised creative tactics like roaming the countryside from town to town in brand new fancy cars which, of course, many men found irresistible. They also used the power of song, composing and performing ditties like SHE’S GOOD ENOUGH TO BE YOUR BABY’S MOTHER AND SHE’S GOOD ENOUGH TO VOTE WITH YOU.
Getting back to our founding board, Coline Jenkins is a treasure. Myriam and I realized that, with her illustrious ancestry and her gift for public speaking, she would be a fabulous fund raiser and spokesperson for the organization. We were right.
In 2014 when Mitchell Siver became Parks Commissioner I called Coline and urged her to make a nighttime trek from Greenwich CT to Brooklyn’s Pratt Institute where he was giving one of his first public speeches. After his talk, Coline of course went up to him and told him our story. He was shocked to learn that there were no statues of real women in Central Park. Coline set him on a course that changed the position of the Central Park and Conservatory leadership who up util then had been vehemently opposed to the idea. It probably took Coline two hours each way. She did it and this became one of our most important turning points – when the official support letter came from the Commissioner, all four of us were overjoyed.
COLINE JENKINS
Founders Award
Founder of Monumental Women
Birthday party.
I believe in “We the people.” That is a nation “of the people, for the people and by the people.”
I believe, “All men AND WOMEN are created equal.
I believe in “forming a more perfect union.” We have made serious mistakes along the way. But we are evolving.
Tonight is a celebration of our progress.
In the quintessential public forum of Central Park, New York City, visited by 42 million people a year, we put our foremothers on a pedestal. Their voices are heard.
We live in the 21st century.
We are on the cusp of electing the first female president of the United States of America. We are evolving.
I will let Elizabeth Cady Stanton, my great great grandmother, have the last words,
“Come, come, … wipe the dew off your spectacles, and see that the world is moving.”
Thank you for riding this bandwagon.
Celeste Kirkland, Mary Anne Trasciatti, LuLu LoLo
