In 1996, the Massachusetts legislature recognized that the State House art collection included only a handful of images of women. They recommended that a new work of art be created to honor the contributions of women to public life in Massachusetts. Now permanently installed on a large wall just outside Doric Hall, the work depicts six women selected by an advisory committee to represent all the women who dedicated themselves to improving life in the Commonwealth. The women are: mental health activist Dorothea Dix (1802-87); suffragist and peace activist Florence Luscomb (1887-1985); labor activist Mary Kenney O’Sullivan (1864-1943); abolitionist Sarah Parker Remond (1814-94); activist for African American rights and suffragist Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin (1842-1924); suffragist and abolitionist Lucy Stone (1818-93). The two-toned marble bas relief panel designed by artists Sheila Levrant de Bretteville and Susan Sellers includes words written by the women etched on the stone and bronze busts cast from period photographs.
Nurses Hall, Clara Barton Marker
The statue, depicting a nurse aiding a wounded soldier, was given in 1914 by the Massachusetts Daughters of Veterans. The statue is accompanied by a painting by Edward Brodney, honoring mothers of war, featuring his mother, Sarah Brodney, as the model. Plaques behind the statue honor Clara Barton (1821-1912) and Frances Slanger (1913-44). Barton, known as the “Angel of the Battlefield,” founded the American Red Cross in 1881. Slanger, the first American nurse killed in combat in WWII, landed in Normandy on June 9, 1944. Her letter praising American GIs was published posthumously in Stars and Stripes.
