Adelaide Johnson was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 sculptor whose work is displayed in the U.S. Capitol and a feminist who was devoted to the cause for equality of women.

Born Sarah Adeline Johnson to a farm

Farm

A farm is an area of land, or, for aquaculture, lake, river or sea, including various structures, devoted primarily to the practice of producing and managing food , fibres and, increasingly, fuel. It is the basic production facility in food production. Farms may be owned and operated by a single...

 family of modest means in Plymouth, Illinois

Plymouth, Illinois

Plymouth is a village in Hancock County, Illinois, United States. The population was 562 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Plymouth is located at .According to the United States Census Bureau, the village has a total area of , all of it land.-Demographics:...

, she attended rural school and then took classes at the St. Louis School of Design. In 1878, she changed from Sarah Adeline to Adelaide, a name she thought was more dramatic. She moved to Chicago and supported herself with her art. In January 1882, hurrying to get to her studio, she slipped and fell twenty feet down the well of an unguarded elevator

Elevator

An elevator is a type of vertical transport equipment that efficiently moves people or goods between floors of a building, vessel or other structures...

 shaft. Badly hurt, she sued for compensation and was awarded the sum of $15,000. Ironically, this injury and award gave her the financial freedom to travel to Europe to study painting and sculpture, an opportunity she would never have had without the accident. She took the opportunity to study in Dresden

Dresden

Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....

 and Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

, studying with Giulio Monteverde

Giulio Monteverde

Giulio Monteverde was an Italian naturalist sculptor and teacher.-Biography:Monteverde was born in Bistagno, Italy and studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome. He later became a professor there...

 in Rome where she kept a studio until 1920.

In 1896 she married Frederick Jenkins, a British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 businessman and fellow vegetarian who was eleven years younger than she. He took her name as "the tribute love pays to genius". They were wed by a woman minister, and her bridesmaids were the busts she did of Susan B. Anthony

Susan B. Anthony

Susan Brownell Anthony was a prominent American civil rights leader who played a pivotal role in the 19th century women's rights movement to introduce women's suffrage into the United States. She was co-founder of the first Women's Temperance Movement with Elizabeth Cady Stanton as President...

 and Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Elizabeth Cady Stanton was an American social activist, abolitionist, and leading figure of the early woman's movement...

. However, the marriage ended after twelve years.

She exhibited at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition

World's Columbian Exposition

The World's Columbian Exposition was a World's Fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. Chicago bested New York City; Washington, D.C.; and St...

 in Chicago, showing busts of prominent suffragists Lucretia Mott

Lucretia Mott

Lucretia Coffin Mott was an American Quaker, abolitionist, social reformer, and proponent of women's rights.- Early life and education:...

, Susan B. Anthony, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. The high point of her professional career was to complete a monument in Washington D.C. in honor of the women's suffrage movement. Alva Belmont

Alva Belmont

Alva Erskine Belmont , née Alva Erskine Smith, also called Alva Vanderbilt from 1875 to 1896, was a prominent multi-millionaire American socialite and a major figure in the women's suffrage movement...

 helped to secure funding for the piece, which was unveiled in 1921.

Her career declined after the 1930s, and financial problems beset her. She relied on others for financial support and was often unwilling to sell her sculptures because she felt the prices offered did not recognize her work. Faced with eviction for failure to pay taxes, in 1939 she invited the press to witness her mutilating her own sculptures as a protest against her circumstances, and against the failure to realize her dream of a studio-museum commemorating suffragists and other women's campaigners. She moved in with friends in 1947 and appeared on TV quiz programs trying to win money to buy back her home. Her flamboyant nature led her to lie about her age through her life. She celebrated her 100th birthday at the age of 88, realizing that it made good publicity. Upon her death, her age was reported to be 108, though she was only 96. She is buried in Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

 at Congressional Cemetery

Congressional Cemetery

The Congressional Cemetery is a historic cemetery located at 1801 E Street, SE, in Washington, D.C., on the west bank of the Anacostia River. It is the final resting place of thousands of individuals who helped form the nation and the city of Washington in the early 19th century. Many members of...

.

External links

• Congressional Cemetery, Washington DC
• Adelaide Johnson: A marriage of art and politics. Frank Faragasso and Doug Stover, National Capital Parks — East. Accessed 13 January 2008.