The National Mall in D.C. tells America’s story through monuments to war heroes and inspirational leaders. But what the Mall doesn’t yet have, as the country approaches its 250th year, is an independent monument to women.
The nonprofit Women’s Suffrage National Monument Foundation, which has been leading the memorial effort, is backing legislation to build it on the same grand stretch where monuments like the Lincoln Memorial, Vietnam Wall and Washington Monument stand. The National Park Service says it has to go elsewhere.
But Anna Laymon, the executive director of the monument foundation, said she has gotten “the shoulder shrug” from the congressional staffers and officials — mostly men, she says — with whom she has spoken about the project. “I won’t care about this unless someone makes me,” she said of the reaction she has received.Kimberly Wallner, the foundation’s deputy director, said she and Laymon have been working on monument placement for a year and a half.
Laymon and Peter May, the Park Service’s associate regional director for lands and planning, visited a site in January near the National Gallery of Art that NPS proposed as an alternative location. She said she rejected it because of what she called a lack of visibility: by the Mall but not on it. But the suffragists’ achievements resonated. Sen. Steve Daines noted that his state is “proud of the fact we elected the first woman to ever serve in Congress,” electing Rep. Jeannette Rankin even before women had the right to vote.
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