White Marmorean Flock

Despite the obstacles, a group of women took up residence in Rome in the mid-1800s and created sculptures from the fine white marble quarried in nearby Carrara, Italy. Henry James irreverently described these women as "that strange sisterhood of American 'lady sculptors' who at one time settled upon the seven hills in a white, marmorean flock."

At left: The Prince of Wales visits studio of sculptor Harriet Hosmer.

---

Women's Building, Chicago World Fair - 1893

The exhibition provided Adelaide Johnson with her first international recognition and validated her as a professional artist. Johnson would later remark that the days were over when women artists were “looked upon with curiosity, classed and perhaps indulged as freaks.”

---

Adelaide Johnson predicted that women’s inspiration
for Art would come from “some inward realization
of character or life purpose”---not evoked or stimulated
“by the cup or fumes of the deadly nicotine.”

---

Johnson emphasized that men had realized
the value of great monuments a long time ago---
“monumenting themselves and their achievements all over the planet.”

The important thing for the woman movement was the creation of worthy monuments to great women.

---

Janet Scudder

When asked to produce a portrait statue of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow to be placed in Washington, D.C., Janet Scudder said,

“I won't do it!...I won't add to this obsession of male egotism
that is ruining every city in the United States
with rows of hideous statues of men-men-men
-- each one uglier than the other -- standing, sitting,
riding horseback ­ every one of them pompously convinced
that he is decorating the landscape.”

---

"When the written records of the woman movement are
yellowing in dusty libraries, future generations will still be admiring her [Adelaide Johnson's] work."

---