Timeline from The Suffrage Statue: A History of Adelaide Johnson’s
Portrait Monument to Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and
Susan B. Anthony at the United States Capitol
by Sandra Weber, McFarland Publishers, 2016.

1840    Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton attend Anti-Slavery Meeting in London.

1848    The first woman’s rights convention in the U.S. held at Seneca Falls, New York.

1851    Sojourner Truth delivers “Arn’t I a Woman?” speech.

1859    Sarah Adeline (Adelaide) Johnson is born near Plymouth, Illinois.

1861    The Civil War interrupts the woman’s rights campaign.

1869    Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony create the National Woman Suffrage Association.  
              Lucy Stone, Henry Blackwell, and Julia Ward Howe create the American Woman Suffrage Association.

1870    Fifteenth Amendment passes, granting black men the right to vote. Women are not granted suffrage.

1872    Susan B. Anthony votes and is arrested.

1878    Women’s suffrage amendment is first introduced to Congress.

1884    Adelaide Johnson moves to Rome and studies under Giulio Monteverde.

1886    Adelaide Johnson meets Susan B. Anthony at the NWSA convention in Washington, D.C.

1890    NWSA and AWSA merge into National American Woman Suffrage Association (NASWA).

1893    Adelaide Johnson displays busts of Anthony, Mott and Stanton in the Woman’s Building at the World Fair
             in Chicago.

1905    Statue of Frances Willard is the first sculpture of a woman placed in Statuary Hall (and in the Capitol).

1913    Alice Paul and Lucy Burns form the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage,
             which becomes the National Woman’s Party in 1916.

1916    Jeannette Rankin of Montana becomes the first woman elected to Congress.

1917    Women from the NWP picket the White House and sent to jail. World War I interrupts suffrage campaign.

1920    Adelaide Johnson departs for Italy. NWP authorizes commission for three busts on May 14.
             Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution grants women the right to vote on August 26.

1921    Portrait Monument is placed aboard ship in Italy on January 1.
             Monument arrives at the Capitol on February 5 and is moved inside on February 11.
             Unveiling ceremony occurs on February 15, Susan B. Anthony’s birthday.
             Monument moves out of Rotunda to north side of Crypt on February 16.
             Monument moves from north side of Crypt to center of Crypt and inscription is removed in September.

1922    Statue moves from center to side of crypt on February 14. (It is moved back to the center in 1922-1923.)

1923    Edna St. Vincent Millay reads her sonnet “The Pioneers” at celebration on November 18.
              Equal Rights Amendment is proposed to Congress by NWP in December.

1930    Bases of black and white marble are erected under the monument.

1955    Adelaide Johnson dies at age 96.

1965    Monument moved to southeast wall in Crypt.

1996    Congress passes H. Con. Res. 216. It allows the monument into the Rotunda for one year.

1997    Monument moves from Crypt to Rotunda in May. Rededication ceremony takes place on June 26.

2003    H.R. 601 is introduced to revise the monument to include a likeness of Sojourner Truth. (Not passed.)

2009    Portrait bust of Sojourner Truth is unveiled in Visitor Center of U.S. Capitol.