On a cloudy, cool Saturday, May 18, Acton artist Meredith Bergmann’s bronze monument to the women of Lexington, Massachusetts was dedicated with a community celebration. The Lexington Women’s Monument, entitled, “Something is Being Done” was the project of LexSeeHer, a group of women dedicated to making women’s stories and accomplishments visible in Lexington.
The title of the monument comes from the words of a Lexington woman, Abigail Harrington on April 19th, 1775, who said, “The reg’lars are out and something must be done,” on the morning of the first battle of the American Revolution. The monument is on part of the Lexington town green near the visitor center and about a hundred yards from the iconic Minuteman statue that stands on one corner of the Green.
The large two-sided bronze sculpture was officially unveiled on Wednesday, May 15th but Saturday, May 18th was the day for the dedication of “Something is Being Done”. The activities began with an artist talk by Ms. Bergmann, dressed in a striking purple coat, who discussed her inspirations for the bas-relief sculpture. She described how she chose to portray the more than twenty women, and how she was able to convey a sense of motion and action in bronze.
Bergmann cited several sources for aspects of the monument, including the work of Thomas Hart Benton, the 20th-century American artist whose mural paintings used architectural motifs to frame his paintings. She described how she used an arch to divide the sculpture and the origin of arches as symbols of military victory in Rome that had been transformed into a broader symbol of accomplishment. She also described the painstaking process of moving from two-dimensional drawings to three-dimensional molds and finally to the finished work of bronze. A great deal of the work of creating the sculpture took place in the studio that Bergmann built in a former barn at her Acton home. Bergmann has created other notable public sculptures including the Boston Women’s Memorial and, more recently, the Women’s Rights Pioneer Monument in New York’s Central Park.
A crowd of nearly four hundred gathered for the formal dedication ceremony in the afternoon. It included the presentation of the monument to the Town of Lexington by the officers of LexSeeHer: Jesse Steigerwald, Michelle Tran, Leslie Masson, Martha Wood, and Kamala Raj. LexSeeHer also presented the town with $10,000 to be used for ongoing maintenance of the monument.
Lexington State Senator Michael Barrett addressed the crowd and described how he had shown the images of the women in the sculpture to young women he knew and worked with, and found that the images had great emotional depth and generated a range of responses.
Descendants of women portrayed in the monument were in attendance, including Yvonne Goldsberry, Worcester native and the descendant of Margaret Tulip, an enslaved woman in 18th-century Lexington who successfully sued for her freedom. Ms. Goldsberry spoke about how the monument served to “paint a picture of who belongs.” Ms. Goldsberry concluded, “ We live in a world of stories, but it is what we do with them that matters.”
There were performances by dance groups including the Encore Dance Ensemble, founded by Acton residents Ann Budner and Elaine Sisler.
Artist Meredith Bergmann spoke again in the afternoon dedication ceremony and lauded the work of LexSeeHer in seeking a new way to portray women. Bergmann said that the monument sought to show that “women’s persistence and strength and self-realization can overcome trauma and injustice.”
Bergmann concluded her remarks by saying, “My greatest hope for this monument that I made for you is that it will encourage, literally, give heart, to all of you. Thank you, Lexington, for giving me the opportunity to make women visibly part of this historic landscape.
Bob Van Meter is a twenty-nine year resident of Acton who has spent his career in affordable housing and community development. He is deeply interested in history, particularly the untold stories of our region.