The Boston Women’s Memorial on Commonwealth Avenue consists of a trio of statues that honor the lives and legacies of female figures in Boston’s history: Abigail Adams, Lucy Stone and Phillis Wheatley. The artist, Meredith Bergmann, created this interactive exhibition in 2003 by making life-sized statues and having each woman use her pedestal rather than standing on it.
Phillis Wheatley
Educated and enslaved by a Boston family, she was the first black woman in America to publish a book, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral. which she did in 1773. Her work was read by both slave owners and abolitionists, and demonstrated the intellectual abilities of people of color, advancing the abolition movement.
Lucy Stone
An abolitionist and suffragette born in Brookfield, she was among the first women to graduate college in Massachusetts. She fervently battled all sorts of inequality, organizing the first national Women’s Rights Convention in Worcester and setting a new standard by refusing to take her husband’s last name.
Abigail Adams
From Weymouth, Massachusetts, she was not only the wife of the second U.S. president, but also an advocate for women’s rights. An excerpt of a letter written to her husband in 1776, which is inscribed on her pedestal, reads, “…and by the way in the new Code of Laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the Ladies we are determined to foment a Rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation.”
Next time you’re wandering around Boston, make sure to check out this memorial — you are guaranteed to be inspired.