Mural Series Honoring Suffragists Has Home in Chicago, NYC & Portland Soon

Public artwork tributes to real women are sparse.

Congress recently rejected the request for an American Women’s History Museum to have a home on the Washington, DC Mall, at a time when women artists are underrepresented, with women of color a tiny fraction of that. Almost all are significantly underpaid.

Neysa Page-Lieberman and I formed the Chicago Womxn’s Suffrage Tribute Committee in 2019 to create the first mural. The other committee members were Kris Nesbitt, Lori Osborne, Meg Duguid, and Catherine Mardikes, all women whose knowledge spans women’s history, art curation, and public art production. In 2024, Page-Lieberman and I expanded to create a National Suffrage Mural Series which aims to educate, inspire and give visibility to the activist women who changed our country. The current goal is have larger-than-life artwork in 10 cities across the nation, with women-led teams in each location demonstrating the extensive network women built over generations to gain equal rights. The New York City edition is currently being installed and Portland, OR edition will be underway within the next few months. 

It took almost two years to secure funding, the right artist, and a 60’ x 240’ space on a wall through the Wabash Arts Corridor for the first mural. “On the Wings of Change,” by the artist Diosa (Jasmina Cazacu) features 10 Chicago-based suffragists who represent the diversity of those who fought for women to have the right to vote and a voice in the country’s democracy. The selected suffragists were attorneys, organizers, community leaders, social workers, club women, and writers:

• Jane Addams, (top left) co-founder of Hull House who fought for the rights of children, immigrants and women. 
• Myra Bradwell, (second from the right in second row) attorney and advocate for women’s rights and first woman admitted to the Illinois bar.
• Mary Livermore, (far right, top row) organized the Chicago Suffrage Convention and created the Agitator newspaper, devoted to women’s suffrage.
• Catharine Waugh McColloch, (second from the right in third row) chair of the Legislative Committee of the Illinois Equal Suffrage Association (IESA) and legal pioneer who fought for the Illinois Suffrage Act, signed into law in 1913.
• Agnes Nestor, (far right, bottom row) labor leader and union organizer who advocated for the rights of women factory workers.
• Grace Wilbur Trout, (far left, bottom row) leader in several local suffrage organizations including the Chicago Political Equality League (CPEL) and IESA and member of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA).
• Mary Fitzbutler Waring, (far left, top row) a physician, active in the National Association of Colored Women and the Illinois Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs. 
• Ida B. Wells, (far right, fourth row) known for her anti-lynching journalism, was co-founder of the National Association of Colored Women (NACW), founder of the Alpha Suffrage Club (first club for Black women) and a member of IESA.
• Frances E. Willard, (far left, top row) president of the national Women’s Christian Temperance Union to curb alcohol due to association with domestic violence and other forms of abuse that affected women.
• Fannie Barrier Williams, (far right, second row), was the only African American member of the Chicago Women’s Club and helped found the National League of Colored Women and NACW.

The fight for political inclusion took over 70 years for White women specifically and even longer for most women of color. Suffragists employed multiple strategies – one was to go state by state, the other was to approach on a federal level to change the constitution. Women gained their right to vote in different years and to different extents by state, with Wyoming being the first to grant the right in 1869. Over the next few decades, several states followed suit, and Illinois women gained limited rights (municipal and national elections, but not state) in 1913 as a result of the women showcased on the “On the Wings of Change” mural. Illinois was only the first state east of the Mississippi River to grant women the right to vote, seven years before the 19th amendment which does not have the word woman in it. 

These historical women leaders worked for the right to vote in order to impact their own lives and that of their children and community. They endured living in a world where women had no property rights, no right to control their own money or wages, no right to divorce, no rights when it came to domestic violence, and no control over their bodies. They knew that laws needed to be changed in order for their lives to improve. 

They paved the way for Chicago’s two women mayors (Jayne Byrne and Lori Lightfoot) and the dozens of women in the Illinois state legislature. For Carol Moseley Braun to become the first African American woman elected as Illinois senator in 1992. For Tammy Duckworth in 2016, 24 years later, to become the first Asian American and double amputee military veteran to serve the state in the same role. For Juliana Stratton, in 2019 to become the first African American Lieutenant Governor, and could soon become the third woman of color to be elected as a United States senator representing Illinois.

In order to recognize the continuation of women’s progress, we commissioned the “Speak Up!” mural by Dorian Sylvain with Vice President Kamala Harris’ “I’m Speaking” quote and “Votes for Women” by AB Productions which features a yellow rose, one of the symbols of the movement–both installed in 2023 at 623 S. Wabash. 

We still have a long way to go for equal representation, but women will continue making strides in elected positions, corporate leadership, community development, and public artwork.