It was november 12 1927 when the pioneer mothers sculpture was dedicated in valley park. It not only celebrates kansas citys pioneer history, but is also a tribute to those who suffered great hardship and loss while traveling across the plains in search of a better life. In her new book, pioneer mother monuments, constructing cultural identity, historian cynthia press scott walks through more than a century of recognition and rediscovering the Pioneer Monuments erected across the nation, including those in the kansas city region. We are honored to have you here today to discuss her research. Doctor press caught is an associate professor of history at the university of north dakota. Her research focuses on gender in the American West specifically intersections of gender, social class and historical memory. Her work in these areas have been published in journal of the west, Pacific Historical review and other publications. Prescotts first book was published in 2007. It traces generals and ideology among early white settlers in oregon between 1845 and 1900. While our academic focus and training were in social history, doctor prescott also has a strong background in several areas of public history, including Museum Curator ship, management, collections management, archival and book cataloguing and historic preservation. In short, she is the complete historian. Please join me in welcoming to the kansas city public library, cynthia prescott. applause good afternoon. Nearly 30,000 people reportedly attended the dedication ofs kansas citys pioneer mother statute and pen valley park in 1927. Interesting pioneer mother monuments waned after world war ii. Kansas City Residents soon forgot their tribute to long suffering frontiers women. Done in the 19 eighties, local residents rediscovered kansas citys connection to the western trails. Tracing the century long history of kansas city area reveals the waxing and waning a frontier memory in this region and across the nation. The earliest Pioneer Monuments by which i should stop and explain. I define Pioneer Monument to be a sculpture statue or sculptural release that is a case of public art that is a tribute to a deep and physically depicts frontier people. These are found throughout the country, that there is a particularly dense concentration here in the kansas area. The earliest of these Pioneer Monuments as i call them were put out beginning in the 18 eighties. Increasingly so, in the years following world war one. Those earliest monuments that were put up at the turn of the century were explicitly depicting a racial hierarchy in the west. And this is at the same time that the confederate monuments we have been hearing so much about on the news were being put up by the confederacy and other groups of the south. Some more things are going on in the west. People are putting monuments that are explicitly depicting race in the west. Here in kansas city, there arent any really explicit depictions of racial hierarchy in the earliest monuments, at least not as evident as in some other locations. Kansas citys most obvious one is, the earliest statue that sort of hits the definition is the scout, exhibited at the San Francisco world fair in 1915. Then it was being shipped back east by train temporarily placed in pen valley park after the fare ended. Kansas reads kansas City Residents like that so much that they raised nickels and downs up to a total of 15,000 dollars to purchase the statue and erected it in 1922 as a memorial to local indian tribes. There are similar sculptures being put up in the 19 tens and 19 twenties to generally depict native people sort of a past tense thing. It is celebrating people who were assumed at the time, to be a disappearing race. Social darwinism suggested that the most civilized racist which they presumed to be white English Speaking american peoples, would ultimately triumph through progress and native peoples would fade into put down to nothing. A tribute to this type were fairly common. In other cities, it also depicted sculpture, erected monuments that explicitly depicted native people and white people towering over them. Literally, a hierarchy of racist depicted. Nothing that explicit was erected in kansas city. This kind of imagery focused on the early history of the region of the first trade, interactions between native people and white settlers were quite common. This was originally taken from a map of early west port which was founded in 1812. It considers itself to be the birthplace of what is now the kansas city natural region. West port was the First Community in kansas city that wanted to put up a Pioneer Monument explicitly. They wanted to put up a wagon train to mark this the santa fe trail. So they wanted to put this up in 1912. Marking the beginning of the opening of the santa fe trail which opened trade between the United States and mexico. And shortly after mexico gave it to from spain. West port was located on the santa fe trail and also had connections to that westward migrations, the oregon on california trail. That imagery is pretty common. They didnt actually make it into statues here in kansas city. What imagery does exist is more focused on interaction or celebrating native people in the past, if not native persistence into the 20th century. Please excuse me, my kids brought home a cold to me. I will try not to sniffle in your ears. The in the years after world war one, americans became increasingly interested in commemorating piety mothers explicitly. Their earliest were white pioneer man dressed in buckskin conquering western lands and native people. But beginning in about 1920, depictions of pioneer women explicitly dip like did as pioneer mothers, became popular. One of the earliest in kansas city, this is a little hard to make out, ive learned along the way that its very difficult for me to tie my visits to monuments all over the country and get the lighting right. My apologies, this one was not very well defined by the light. This was sculpted by meryl gauge, erected in 1920 in west port. They had wanted to put up a covered wagon sculpture, to celebrate dissent of a trail, but Business Leaders and historically minded men got excited about the west port centennial in 1912 and then they let the project drop. Then they lost interest. A group of local women had formed the daughters of old west port, to help remarks that centennial. In the aftermath of that sun celebration after 1912, they were determined to still see a monument put up. They proceeded to do fundraising and they never reached the point of putting up a life sized wagon, which wouldve been a major understood taking, instead they look to a typical model of the womens groups at the time, a sculptural plaque, a bronze relief on to a large boulder. The daughters of the American Revolutions are putting up similar kinds of trail markers at this time. The daughters of west port put up this one sculpted by kansas sculptor meryl gauge in 1920. You can see what is intended to be the front of the monument, which says to the pioneer mother. It depicts a mother with an infant, more at a young boy tugging at her skirt and a rifle in her hand. On the rivers, i dont know if you can make it out but there is an image the pace on sketch from an old map. That image gets reproduced there as well. The meanwhile we see great interest interacting a larger monument to pioneer women in the kansas city area. And a wealthy local businessmen encountered a model, and the prominent western sculptor of the time, he followed up with the model and said kansas city had to have. It so, he chose to erect this monument. The price at the time was 40,000 dollars. It was so extravagant at the time. That they kept that information out of that papers, they didnt want anyone to know how much he spent on this culture. It is larger than life, it is a sculpture of a mother on horseback holding her infant. This was her pioneer husband guiding the pack horse. On the other side of her horse you can see amounted then guide. Massive bronze monument, very extensive, very elaborate. That was placed in a location that he and the artist picked out. The today if you are in familiar with that park, there is a highway that splits the park into, and there are hills. It is a sloped park. The west side of the highway is where the scout stands, the indian scout that i showed you earlier, that looks out over kansas city. The pioneer mother was placed on the other side up above the world war one memorial. And she does not actually gays out literally over the city because she faces south. This was a point of contention with these monuments, people believe it needs to be gauging over this city or appointing westward. Artist however tend to insist on having them face south because that is where the light is best and you can see there features. In the case of kansas city they went with artistic location rather than the historically accurate. This is a sculpture that product or produced. He produced other sculptures for different parts of the country. But this is the largest of the sculptures he produce for this purpose. In it he really wanted to emphasize women suffering and hardship as well sir civilizing influence on what were perceived to be wild or savage lands. He borrowed imagery that might be familiar to you. This is the painting of daniel boon taking the settlers through the cumberland gap. This was an image that was reproduced throughout that country as print media. It became possible in the second half of the 19th century. This was quite familiar to people in the 1920s. The explicitly then, aligning this pioneer mother with the virgin mary and married the mother of jesus. Religious imagery explicitly depicted in her plotting west. Like daniel boone showing similarly evoking the virgin mary as a pine in the air woman in the cumberland gap. Propped are further reinforced this religious connection an emphasis on the woman sacrifice and following of her husbands lead, by placing around the base of this culture the text from the book of ruth the. Whether thou goest i will go, that people shall be my people and thy god my god. The assumption here is that she and her husband are both christians. It is not that she is just following the christian god as a result of this. This is a passage that was oft quoted from the bible emphasizing ruths selfsacrifice and commitment to embracing values from the judeochristian tradition. So this is the most famous sculpture, and largest here in kansas city. But it is far from being the only pioneer mother sculpture put up in the 1920s and 30s. There are so many of them that i refer to it as the pioneer Mother Movement of the last two decades. The other most famous, perhaps, are the 12 identical sculptures by August Leinbach that the daughters of the American Revolution erected across the country in 1928 and 1929. The dar had been erecting boulders with bronze relief pack plaques on them, text or imagery of the overland trails or both. They had also had a project where they were marking westward trails by painting telephone poles red white and blue the idea was that local chapters would maintain them. They began to realize that marking the western trails, and there is a national old trails road that the dar at a national trails Road Association had mapped out that stretch to california. All these plans to put up lots of these markers proved impractical. Putting up bronze plaques every mile would be too expensive, painting telephone poles is more affordable in the short run but hard to maintain. You are relying on local chapters throughout the country. Instead they shifted gears, and decided one sculpture per state. They would be marked by these larger than life sculptures of a pioneer mother, who like that old west port relief i showed you from a few years earlier, features a woman with a rifle. When women are featured with rifles, it is never in the active shooting. They are not intended to be out hunting or fighting people. It is the sign that they have it as for protection, an indication that the west was an unsafe place for women. And emphasizes their, the hardships they were facing. So this shows them plodding westward. A few years later, topeka wanted to erect a pioneer mother on the state house lawn. They initially chose a sculpture similar to a much more famous when in ponket city, oklahoma which showed a young, attractive woman walking west, caring a bible and leading her young son by the hand. Topeka intended to erect the same one by the same sculpture. But the image featured up in Woman Holding a scythe. The people in topeka did not like this because to hold a scythe implied women were doing field labor. While in fact, if you know anything about the frontier, women were doing fieldwork. Especially in the early years. Especially in kansas they were. And in missouri, maybe not quite as much. The goal of the frontier people was to maintain separate gender spheres. Men work in the fields and women work in the home. They crossed those lines a lot in the early years. But they didnt want anyone to talk about that, we want to erase that former memory. And so they replaced the bryant baker design with this one, by meryl gauge the same sculpture as the old west port relief from 15 years earlier. Again, this shows a woman with a rifle instead of a safe. Oddly, you dont really want women shooting guns anymore than you want them wielding a scythe. But it didnt really cross their minds as a woman going out to fight humans or hunt wild animals. It is primarily a defensive tool for her. Unless you think shes a strong woman, which the da are sculptures might have actually implieds, the gauge sculpture for the kansas state house has her seeded with her son reading a book, probably the bible though it is hard to tell. And of course holding her baby. So by placing her in a chair, we have her in a domestic space. We have her resting from her labors. We have heard contained in domestic sphere. And the rightful across her lap just in case her husband is away doing what manly men do in the fields. She remains in the home. This is the kind of imagery that winds out across the country. But it fits well i think, with the kansas city park sculpture, which shows her on route to the west, when she was on horseback. In reality, women walked along the trail. But increasing plea in the twenties and thirties people started depicting her as an iconic pioneer mother, writing in a covered wagon or in the case of kansas city, writing on a horse. Because walking 2000 miles is a major undertaking. We do not want to think about women doing that. We want to think about women in an enclosed domestic space as much as possible. There is an attention here as being a proper woman, protect her as a civilized woman, by placing her in space is their least pseudodomestic or contained in some way. Interest in Pioneer Monuments declined significantly after world war ii. The most citys, whereas there were two dozen monuments put up in the twenties and thirties, they were just a handful put up in the decades following world war ii. When they did get put up, they were no longer being placed in really prominent locations. Pen valley parker on the state house lawn. Instead they intended to appeared smaller towns or suburbs that are trying to make a name for themselves. For example, Shopping Center. Brand new post War Shopping Center like this is where it is that in terms of civic life in the 19 forties and fifties. Late 19 fifties and early sixties, public life most from the downtown city center, civic center areas, to suburban areas. People are building. They are getting in their cars and driving to Shopping Centers rather than being on foot in the city. You made perfect sense to put a pioneer statute. At the time it was placed at the entrance of the parking lot for the Shopping Center. Brandnew Shopping Center, but we are valuable in our Little Kansas words. We have a pioneer family. Mom that and baby in a wagon wheel. It was much more later when the Shopping Center changed, but this was later moved to the fountain in a traffic sent Traffic Circle that you see here. Monuments in the period also tended to depict a nuclear family. Occasionally mom, dad and baby like this one, this is something that it appeared in the 1920s less frequently than the solar pioneer women and children. But it becomes more the fend lee union unit. An emphasis in the 19 fifties as an American Culture because focusing on the nuclear family. Again this is part of moving to suburban life then rather increasingly, instead of a baby, they start depicting a young son. Eight or ten years old. Or a teenager who represents the hope for the future of the nation. Things began to change again in the 1970s. As the United States prepared to celebrate the american independence from Great Britain and 1976, a nation initially planned the government initially planned a Federation Celebration wide no one could agree on what that should look like. This was at a time of growing identity politics growing out of the 19 1960s to the early seventies. You have interest and African American identity, interests and latino identity and so on and so forth. The nation is more fragmented in the way that it chooses to remind itself in the wake of those identity politics movements. Debate over vietnam and so forth. The bicentennial National Celebration said they would decide to put their resources behind encouraging local history celebration. State and local level commemorations. This leads to a renewed interest and all sorts of american history. You have people who are interested in quilting, remembering the 19th century as well, even though it is not part of the story of the u. S. Independents and 1776. Many communities in the midwest got interested and celebrating their frontier and heritage. Pioneer stories become an important thing that people want to tell. As part of that project, wichita directed a pioneer women known as the heritage woman. A newly formed Heritage Park behind the county Historical Society museum. And the former carney guy library. This then represented an ode to women who walked west on the frontier trail. This is the picture preparing to bathe in a kansas stream to wash off the dust, instead of with a rifle. Carrying along traditions were seen as being central to many aspects of fine art, typically and sculpture. It is stylized, more than what would have been done in 1915 and so they were merging that Classical Tradition of nude sculpture with avantgarde movements that were going into more stylish directions by the 19 sixties and seventies. This interest in local history and an inclusivity of lots of different local stories, encourage people to put up this monument who thought it was lovely. In 1976. Fast forward to the early 2000s, and people started having problems with the sculpture. Three times in the last 15 years, the sculpture has been severely vandalized. Hand was chopped off. The sculpture toppled, and eventually they had to remove it for major restoration work several times. We do not know who attacked the sculpture. They never left a manifesto explaining why they did so. I think the suggests that maybe people were not so happy with a pioneer women who is nude, at least not in wichita. To my lollygag, no one has attacked another Pioneer Monument that stands about a quarter of a mile away on the riverfront in front of the newly built civic center in wichita. This one is called hardship and dreams. It is a more traditional depiction of a pioneer women, carrying a bible and a satchel holding her son by the hand. By 1994, wichita had embraced imagery that directly evoked sculpture sculptures that were erected in the 1920s at which time in many other smaller or mid sized cities, started to erect monuments like this one in the 1990s that harkened back to that 1920s pioneer Mother Movement. So many of them, you can almost argue that there is a slight second pioneer Mother Movement that get started in the 90s. Meanwhile, in other places, people start having a problem with pioneer portland oregon, San Francisco, known for being politically progressive. People start complaining about protesting new or older monuments as not being sufficiently inclusive of our local nugget native populations or expressing concern about celebrating the forest removal of native peoples. Wichita did not seem too concerned about that part. There are more concerned they wanted to stick to the traditional imagery. Well other places were saying, you cannot put those things up. We do not need grandma anymore. We need to recognize that there are larger implications than what grandma did. A member of our communities do put up monuments and many of them, i argue, were being motivated at least to a substantial extent by a desire to promote heritage tourism. In some cases, they are supposed to be exciting. Look at texas for example. If that will put up this is going to attract people to our location, which was a Historic Site of the stream caught crossing on the chisholm trail. Early 19th century. Today it is just a bedroom community, by embracing the pioneer history, they can pitch themselves that way. So many things are happening in kansas city. West port, once again gets interested in that pioneer mother monument in Penn Valley Park. At that time, the monument itself, you cannot really see it. There was a parking lot path to it but it all got overgrown. There was a sense that this beautiful monument was falling into neglect and had been forgotten so community liard leaders and was support petitioned to move that sculpture from penn valley part to a more heavily visited location in Downtown West port, which, as i mentioned earlier, considers itself to be the birthplace of kansas city. It was on santa fe trail. It was on the overland trails. I the origin, oregon california trails as well. They were really interested in putting this monument where they thought it would be seen. And it would help draw tourists to their Historic Sites as well. This did not go over well with the city of kansas city who was quite content to forget the thing was there until someone else tried to claim it. This is not the only place where this happened. Somebody says, we forget it is there, until someone else says, wait, we want that. Oh, no, that is our beautiful monument. The park board ultimately says, no, how the artist specifically chose this site for this most beautiful sculpture. It would be in the interest of the sculpture to move it in a small little park, a crowded area in old west port. It needs to stay where it is. West ports lost that battle. A second time. They had wanted in the 1920s and didnt get it. Try to get in the 19 eighties and still did not get it. They responded by finally erecting a more elaborate monument of the rule. Still not as big as the Penn Valley Park one but they put up their own monument specific to the west port related people. Notably, they put up a sculpture of three men. They are all much more associated with commerce and family settlement. So the men depicted here are for traders and west port founder, a businessman and cofounder of the pony express, alexander majors. And the mountain man jim. He retired to a sport in the 18 fifties. These are big names in these areas. These are prominent men. If we cannot have a generic iconic pioneer mother, that is fine. We will respond by saying no, we have a real claim. Because of these three important men. They all came from here. This is the kind of local identity choices that they are making in the creation of this monument. That is a very short version of that story. If you want a longer version it is in my book. Okay. Meanwhile, other communities outside the civic, the city boundaries of kansas city also got interested in promoting heritage tourism in the eighties and 1990s. Independence also was really interested in promoting its histories. And dependent has to be claims. And a jumping off point for the oregon trails and as the home of president harry truman. Harry truman happened to be heavily involved in the project that marked the National Road that led to the daughters of the American Revolution statues being put up across the country. He is also obviously a 20th century figure, political figure, but he had an interest in the trails as well. They erected a National Frontier trails museum. They put up a pioneer mother sculpture in the courtyard. To evoke the struggles and hardships of pioneer women. This is something that happened pretty often in this time period, that you want to put up a museum, or a Historic Site, but you do not have it would be great if you had trail reps to show. But if you dont have actual there arent many things that survived from the trail. Trail rats did survive in certain places in the west where the trail was crowded into an area and the wagon wheels actually carved permanent marks outside idaho for example. There are places where these persist. Urban areas like independents and kansas city, not so much. So they didnt really have a historic building, nor did they have rights to point to for the trail. They were the place that was a merchant store, where you bought your stuff and then set off on the trail. So putting up a bronze monuments in next year museum, helps invoke the history that has been lost. We have evoke it with a bronze statue instead. This was sculpted by a mexican sculptor. But some women mostly ankle american raised money to erect this tribute to all the women of independents and those who passed through independents on the trails west. Then Juan Lombardo rivera, the sculptor, made the design and had a cast and in keeping with the tradition of the time, he chose to add color to it. We call it a patina to the outside of the bronze. He chose the color blue which is associated with the virgin marianne, with loyalty and so forth. It is a color that is often evoked with paintings of pioneer women throughout much of the 20th century. That story evoking again, the virgin mary. The women of independence were kind of horrified. They felt that the color that this mexican sculpture was too garish for our pioneer mother. There seem to be in ethnic tension going on. The sculptor was saying a long tradition, but actually classical sculpture did have color, it is just faded overtime. He is arguing to the press that this is a Classical Tradition and i am part of the revival of that. And we dont want anyone tacky, thats what people are saying, we do not need anybody or anything to boulder brash. But once they got it out of the box they said ok, i guess its not so bad. Over time the patina faded, as it happens. By the time i visited the sculpture in 2008, it is not really obvious. There is a tint to it but it is not very bright. 1990 independence we finally get the National Front here. Other communities in the area store to pay tension and jumping on the bandwagon as well. The shawnee erected a Pioneer Crossing in what i believe was a used car lots. There was a lot of concern about this, they did not like the price tag. It was one and a half million dollars. We dont need anything this elaborate. But if you notice that, it is a bit hard to tell what is going on here. This was sculpted into stone in concrete. Kind of a relief of a wagon train. This is a bronze sculpture freestanding of a pioneer woman. The and she has a blue patina, similar to the one that was put up and caused a ruckus in independence 25 years earlier. This culture is mixed media. It emerges out of the stone into bronze to show the wagon teams. There is a wagon master nearby as well. Nearby, if i can get that pronouncey a shun right it is olathe. Olathe wanted to mark their history. They thought to mark their connection to the commercial traffic on the santa fe trail. They places next to a Stagecoach Stop and museum. But and they chose a local kansas city area sculpture to sculpt this. They were born and trained in china before immigrating to the United States. His depiction of a stagecoach is more culturally inclusive than any other Pioneer Monument i have ever found. I found about 200 of them so far. This one has fairly standard imagery. It is a stagecoach rather than a covered wagon, but otherwise pretty close to the same. Pulling the conveyance, then you have people inside the stagecoach. You have people of various ages and people of different ethnicities. On top of the people who are crowded into the stagecoach, literally piled on top of the stagecoach are people of color. You have an African American couple and a latino person on top of the stagecoach, writing on the outside. And you have a native American Woman waving farewell to the travelers. Interestingly the native person is pictured being present rather than having been removed. She is waving the people off as they go from the west, it could be good riddance. There may be subjects there, we are not sure. Then there is an angle american, a white American Woman and her son who look like they are trying to squeeze themselves aboard. The boy holds in his hand in oregon the crane. This evokes the birds flying overhead. I have not been able to flee find any historical precedents for this, that origami was practiced here during that time. I dont know how calm it was among boys in japan in the 18 fifties either. This suggests to me that he was not comfortable depicting asian americans, despite the fact that there is a substantial chinese population recruit to the west help build the real world. That is not a history he felt comfortable including with the stage coast. It doesnt fit with local perceptions of the west. I think the origami crane is his wave to asian people who are not physically depicted in the monuments. Lots of communities around here are setting up these monuments. But not everybody likes them as equally. We talked a moment ago about this very blue woman in independence. She was stolen in 1913 excuse me, 2013 and cut up and the thieves attempted to sell her for scraps. Someone recognized the human hands in the bucket of bronze. They refused to accept it. That scrap dealer had security cameras on site. Although they turn the person away at the time, they did not attempt a citizens arrest like we would maybe think people did in the 19th century, whether they did or not is a different question. But they did report this to the authorities and the three people were apprehended and two of them ended up going to jail. Independence vowed, we will repays. Her so three years later they cast this woman, she was installed in early 2017 on her pedestal. They moved her from a court yards, in the interior of the museum to out front which they argued was more secure location. Yes and no. You could pull up to their parking lot and try to grab her. I was just there this morning and there was no one around. The but she is in a location with lights and security cameras. I guess the idea is to put her out where it was more obvious if you tried to steal her. It also makes her more prominent, instead of being tucked away in a court yards, where you have to have a window and a sign telling you to look out, now that she is a prominent location. They have this is embracing what increasingly historical museums in the west are doing, putting bronze statues in front as a traffic stop or. You drop people in, they think oh that looks cool. Now i have to see what else is here. We have been over these hundred years, we have seen the rise and fall in the pioneer moments. We can see what they need what they should look like, what their future should be. But overall it seems that kemps a city is embracing these monuments. For efforts of tourism, that are not that much different than what people are doing in the 1910 and 1920, put kansas city on the map for fine art. Its not that different. That i did not have time to talk about all the stories, i did not even touch on all of the ones in this area, but if you would like to know more, you can check out my book. I will be signing books afterwards if you are interested. Ive also created a. Website and this you can do for free. It has information about different monuments you can search or browsed by location. You can also look at the highlights the tab that has individual locations, there is a page on kansas city monuments. Not all of them are pictured yet because every time i go somewhere, i have been to kansas city twice researching these, every time i leave, one month later iced ember online. And then i have to go back. The one i was out visiting this morning, the last time you can learn more, and the photo said im taking this weekend you can see. My website also has an interactive map and timeline up at the top it has a timeline you can drag across with your mouse and watch with a pop up over time in space, to get a sense of how these patterns are shifting geographically over time. I am also involved in an app called cleo. It is the yelp of historical sites. I think at last count they had 35,000 sites on there. They have individual sites. Its an app on your phone or you can do it on your computer and from home. You can visit these places. It will guide you. It has a mapping feature that will guide you to these locations. The process of putting my 200 monuments up there, i currently have less than half of them up, but i am in the process of writing those pages. I am using the Mapping Software to build walking and heritage tours. If you want to check out all the Pioneer Monuments, you can go to cleo, or the link in my website and you can visit them. Either if you want to spend a few hours driving around the kansas city area getting to know the road, or you can do it virtually. Enjoy your heritage tour from the comfort of your own home. With that, i will stop talking and i would love to hear your questions. [applause] question. Thank you for coming to kansas city. I have always enjoyed high in your mother pioneer mother. I am curious about fashion and stuff. You talked about the site that was not used, the rifles, and theres always the bonn its, is there any themes to the fashions used. Good question. The boss consisted is the sun bonn it. The sun bomb it evokes the clothing of that time period, and prairie style dress goes with it. The sunbonnet is what people seem to get most excited about. And oil men and oklahoma sponsored at nationwide competition to erect a monument and punk city oklahoma. He directed that it had to be a woman in a sunbonnet, people talk about the sunbonnet a lot. That was in the 1920s. Sometimes also, the covered wagon cover served as a halo over her head, i think theres a halo and element to the covered wagon that. And it also emphasizes her whiteness. Women wore these bonn its to protect themselves from the sun because you wanted to keep your skin pale and white. There is a racial component to it. The only exceptions to those, there were a few sculptors that preferred to put her in a head scarf, over her head or around her shoulders. There was a mormon sculptor, when it comes to mind for that, theres tends to be more evoking the virgin mary. But otherwise the sunbonnet is common. What belongs in her hands and whether she has children or not is more contested. There has been hot debate about the one in punk a city, which i thought to bring a slight for you today, but whether it is a bible or book in her hands. Spoiler alert it is a bible, and the artist intended it to be as such so im explicitly putting across on the other words on it to a vote that it is the bible. Indicating the civilizing element i. Her role in bringing back civilization to an untamed land, to use their language. Sometimes she tends to either have a satchel or a baby. She absolutely she is working at it. But not working in the fields. She needs to be weighted down by her responsibilities, but you need something that contains civilization. So a little satchel might hold that. A baby or a son who embodies hope for the future can serve as a purpose as well. You mentioned the controversies surrounding the monuments overtime and the vandalizing, for example that has taken place as well and actually stealing. Scrapping the monuments. I wonder if you have any observations about inclusiveness, expanding the context to particular monuments before they are either destroyed or removed or vandalized. Or history reappropriates these things over and over again over long period of time. It seems to me, part of the importance of the monument is to remember the way the way that these particular things were remembered at a particular time. The whole issues about racism or gender ethnicity, or all of those kinds of issues, forgetting that we remember them in a particular way without expanding them. Those kinds of issues. Can you comment about those, please . I cannot really think of any examples in which vandals or other protesters were really complaining about depictions of womanhood. It doesnt seem to be a problem to have grandma on a son box. Maybe some people are not interested in giving money to that project. Any early 20th century, women were putting up a pioneer mother monuments. They saw it as a feminist project. It was a way to promote women. We need to remember what the women did as well as the famous man. Weve got sculptures. That kind of thing is going on. Where there has been explicit and debate and vandalism has been a few cases that are fairly explicit in their depiction of racial hierarchy or ethnic hierarchy. In places where communities are particularly progressive. The city of San Francisco put have been a monument in its 60 feet tall and has a tower to White Supremacy essentially. The goddess of war depicting the spirit of california. Then it has an honorable of white men who, sir francis street and other explores up through mexican and angela american political leaders in california. It has depictions of coal miners. Then it has a piece called early days which was this cultural grouping of a spanish missionary, a native man at his feet. And a mexican cowboy swinging a lasso over his head and the background. This became controversial in San Francisco in the 1990s, a time when people, the u. S. Was marking the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus landing in the new world and there was political contestation of whether that should be something we should be celebrating or not . Are we celebrating conquest . And so in the midst of that, native activists took issue with that sculpture that showed the indian kind of countering, they thought before the missionary. The Roman Catholic church, the Spanish National government disagreed that it was a kindly bringing the questions of christianity to the people which is what the sculptor had intended to do. There were people splashing red paint on that sculpture. They sought to have it removed. Unsuccessfully. What happened which the city compromised by putting up explaining that the native population of california was devastated by white settlement. The population was decimated and so they sort of put up the plaque to try and cover over the controversy. Fast forward to 25 years. As the southern population started to challenge confederate monuments in the beginning of 2015, there was no attention to this Pioneer Monument and San Francisco. And activists persuaded the Public Arts Commission to remove that partial portion of the larger monument. There was a lawsuit filed to prevent that from happening. I fought back and forth. They did finally again the sculpture was vandalized. In the meantime, people were hanging up signs around the spanish missionaries neck, questioning the white colonialism and so forth. Eventually, the city did remove that portion and placed it in another location last fall. That is the case where there really has been conversational right time. Vandalism was in place. I dont know of any examples in kansas city of that happening. I know of one other depiction of a settler and native person and calendars you michigan has been removed. There has been a lot of talk about the imagery of the mission. This is also happening at a time founded the California Missions was canonized in so there has been a renewal of the questions of depictions sanna cruz just removed a mission bell from their campus. A lot of this conversation happening in a few locations today. I have not heard anything coming from kansas city. If there is more, please tell me. My sense here is that the vandalism independence was more pragmatically it was a desperate attempt to make money. They wouldve made a few hundred dollars on the scrap metal. A ballpark figure, 35,000 dollars to replace the sculpture. That seems to be not so much targeting, oh we cannot have a depiction of a pioneer mother so much as a, there is a sculpture that nobody is paying attention to. Maybe i can make money with that. There is a range of responses, i guess. Other questions . Im curious. What inspired you to research the pioneer mothers . Fair question. My first book project focused on people who migrated west on the oregon trail. I was fascinated by the organ trail and western migration stories. It was a lot of work done in the 19 seventies and 19 eighties about women and families on the oregon trail. Nobody had really followed them just to oregon. So i sought to do that. We were looking at how much to their generals and ideals changed from those who came over on the trail through their children and grandchildren . I got interested in Pioneer Monuments as a way to get to that question of how are they remembering this . By 1900 and 1920, what do they think they know about what pioneer mothers was really like. From there i got interested, i wonder if the ones in oregon are similar to the ones and other places. Lets see how similar or different they are. Initially, i was really focused on whats in 19 twenties and early 1930s, ive what i know called the pioneer Mother Movement. But once they started looking for them, im looking for the sculpture. I go to Penn Valley Park in a couldnt find it. Im asking, do you know how to get to this culture . They would point me there. All you need to go see the sculpture over here. I would get there and it would be something different. It would be a frontier theme thing but from the 1970s or the 90s. It was not what i had in my head as a pioneer mother. Over time and we cant realize they needed to expand my definition and timeline did not just think about these plan your mothers from the 1920s, but what is the context . Where did they come from and what happens to them afterward . The pen valley park story is a big part of that for me. Bringing me to that broader history. Do historians consider clark upon your mother . Good question. Historians would not probably turn her a pioneer mother. They would want to include her just as they like to include the slave york. They wanted to be more culturally inclusive. They werent all white men. There was one native woman who had this Important Role to play, which makes it more inclusive. It was an African American slave. This is a way to be inclusive for him. But, the pine your mother label would not work. Historians with think about her as a native person, an actor, they would want to think about how much the history term in historian terms would be agency. How much control did she have in her life . Did she make her own decisions or what she subject to men somewhere . But, 120 years ago, that story was different. Portland oregon has their first pioneer mother sculpture, if you will. Pioneer mother monument was put up in 1905 by a group of early feminists. There were suffrage promoters for the most part. In conjunction with the lewis sun clark exposition which was a worlds fair in portland held for the 100th anniversary of the lewis and clark expedition. In the worlds fair of 1904 in st. Louis. A group of suffrage supporters in portland raised money to put up a sculpture of sick ottawa. But the plaque then, the dedication plaque said to the pine your mother of oregon. They thought she could do double duty, because we are celebrating with some cloud because thats part of the fair. That is the story everybody wants to tell right now, but there is interest in in the sort of a feminist story. Shes a leader shes a strong woman and we can celebrate for doing that white women cannot be pioneer mothers. White pioneer mothers would not be out leading. That would bring their femininity into question. But a native women, we already know she is not a true woman. If you put up a native woman who had this Important Role to play, then we get a strong woman role, but its okay for her to be not ladylike, because who would expect anything different from a native women . They are playing these kinds of games. They see her as serving that purpose. I would like to remind everyone that doctor prescott will be signing books outside the auditorium. Let us give her a round of applause. applause i