The Brighton-Allston Historical Society is pleased to present
Mary Howland Smoyer
Women in Boston’s Public Art
Women in Boston’s Public Art
Thursday, April 26, 7:00 p.m.
Brighton Allston Congregational Church
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| Image above: The Boston Women's Memorial honoring Abigail Adams, Lucy Stone, and Phillis Wheatley. –Wikimedia Commons/Ingfbruno by artist Artist Meredith Bergmann. |
Mary Howland Smoyer has been active in the Boston Women's Heritage Trail (bwht.org) for over 25 years. The Trail was founded in 1989 to recover, document, and disseminate Boston women's history. Note that the Boston Women's Heritage Trail website here carries the BAHS Women's History Initiatives and Women of Vision: Brighton Allston Women's Heritage Trail Guide!
In honor of this rich legacy, Mary will talk about women recognized in public art with a focus on the stories of six women honored with statues around Boston. Mary’s talk is most timely, since the 2018 Theme for National Women's History Month is “Nevertheless, She Persisted: Honoring Women Who Fight All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.”
If you have explored the Boston Women’s Memorial pictured above on the Commonwealth Avenue Mall, then you will recognize three of Boston’s firebrand women: Lucy Stone, Abigail Adams, and Phillis Wheatley.
According to the Boston Women's Heritage Trail website:
“Lucy Stone (1818-1893) was one of the first Massachusetts women to graduate from college. She was an ardent abolitionist, a renowned orator, and the founder of the Woman's Journal, the foremost women's suffrage publication of its era. Abigail Adams (1744-1818) was the wife of John Adams, the second president of the United States, and the mother of John Quincy Adams, the sixth president of the United States. Her letters establish her as a perceptive social and political commentator and a strong voice for women's advancement. Phillis Wheatley (ca. 1753-1784), born in South Africa, was sold as a slave from the ship Phillis in colonial Boston. During a time when slaves were forbidden to become literate, she was a literary prodigy whose 1773 volume Poems on Various Subjects, Religious, and Moral was the first book published by an African writer in America.” (Source: bwht.org)
Join Mary Smoyer to hear the stories of Boston’s amazing women reflected in public art – perhaps of these three along with stories of Harriet Tubman, Anne Hutchinson, and Mary Dyer who have also been honored with statues in Boston – and you might ask Mary for tales of others recognized on Cape Cod (Rachel Carson, Mercy Otis Warren, and Katherine Bates)!
Cosponsors: UNESCO/UNITWIN Network on Gender, Culture, and People-Centered Development based at Boston University's Women's, Gender, & Sexuality Studies Program
GaIDI (Gender and International Development Initiatives), Brandeis Women's Studies Research Center
This event is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served.
