'We have broken the bronze ceiling': First monument to real women unveiled in NYC's Central Park

The first monument honoring real women in Central Park was unveiled Wednesday –commemorating the centennial anniversary of the 19th Amendment's ratification and its certification.

"We have broken the bronze ceiling," Meredith Bergmann told USA TODAY Wednesday morning. Bergmann is the renowned sculptor who created the Women's Rights Pioneers Monument, which honors suffragists Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

"It seems especially appropriate that today, on Women's Equality Day, we are unveiling a new statue in Central Park for the first time in over six decades: the first statue of real, nonfictional women, the first statue of an African American and significantly a statue that depicts three great Americans working together," former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in remarks at the event.

Like the women's suffrage movement, which culminated with the ratification of the 19th Amendment 100 years ago, it was a long road for the all-volunteer nonprofit, Monumental Women, which ventured down a seven-year path with Bergmann to conceive, fund and create the monument.

"We are here to move history forward, and not even a pandemic can stop us," Pam Elam, president of the board of Monumental Women, said in her remarks.

Monumental Women raised $1.5 million in private funding, and local Girl Scouts troops donated proceeds of cookie sales.

Businesses such as insurance company New York Life contributed, as did individuals.

Sandra Pimentel, a resident of New York City, has been independently fundraising for a few years. During the pandemic, she started making masks to sell and contribute proceeds to the cause. The colors on the mask reflect those of the historical suffragist sashes.

"Today is one day, and the statue is here in perpetuity,” Pimentel told USA TODAY. “It’s not just the unveiling,” she added, noting that now, young people can walk by and learn about the women's suffrage movement.

In designing the monument depicting Truth, Anthony and Stanton, Bergmann paid close attention to detail and included items significant to the three women: Truth's knitting materials, Anthony's traveling bag and Stanton's books of papers.

The work of the three women depicted in the statue is now "our work," Bergmann said in a release, noting during the event that while the three women did not live to see the 19th Amendment become part of the U.S. Constitution, "our rights were not gained by one dramatic action," but by many.

"Most of the women who took up that fight never lived to see the promised land," Clinton remarked.

"I can’t think of three more deserving women to put on a pedestal in Central Park," Gail Brewer, borough president of Manhattan, said in her remarks.

The 19th Amendment states that “the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”

While it is Central Park's first monument dedicated to real women, there are 23 statues dedicated to real men already in the park, according to Monumental Women. It's also the first statue to be erected in decades.

"(There is) no better way to break our moratorium than this," Mitchell J. Silver, NYC Parks commissioner, said in a virtual address.

Coline Jenkins, Stanton's great-great-granddaughter, who was in attendance, said that it is a great honor to be part of the national celebration.

Her son, Eric Jenkins-Sahlin, the great-great-great-grandson of Stanton, told USA TODAY that he hoped the statue would spark curiosity.

"The statue is an invitation to learn about history and their sacrifice," Jenkins-Sahlin said. "(It's a) beacon of inspiration for the future."

"Let us honor all those women whose names we know and those whose names we will never know," Elam said.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: New York Central Park statue: Women's Rights Pioneers Monument is up