{{Short description|American sculptor and suffragist (1859–1955)}} {{For|the Australian netball player|Adelaide Johnson (netball)}} {{Infobox artist | name = Adelaide Johnson | image =Flickr - USCapitol - Adelaide Johnson (1846-1955) - Women Artists.jpg | caption = | birth_name = Sarah Adeline Johnson | birth_date = {{birth date|1859|9|26|mf=y}} | birth_place = Plymouth, Illinois | death_date = {{death date and age|1955|11|10|1859|9|26|mf=y}} | death_place = Washington, DC | field = Sculpture | training = St. Louis School of Design, Giulio Monteverde | movement = | works = ''Portrait Monument to Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony'', U.S. Capitol | patrons = | influenced by = | influenced = | awards = | spouse = {{marriage|Frederick Jenkins|1896|1908}} }}
'''Adelaide Johnson''' (1859–1955) was an American sculptor whose work is displayed in the U.S. Capitol and a feminist who was devoted to the cause of equality of women. She was known as the "sculptor of the women's movement".<ref name="The Met">{{cite web |title=Adelaide Johnson: Susan B. Anthony |url=https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/11252# |website=The Metropolitan Museum of Art |accessdate=5 January 2019}}</ref>
==Biography== [[Image:Suffrage Monument.JPG|thumb|left|Johnson (left) at the unveiling of the ''Portrait Monument to Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony'' in 1921.]]
Born Sarah Adeline Johnson to a farm family of modest means in Plymouth, Illinois, she attended rural school and then took classes at the St. Louis School of Design.<ref name="Faragasso">{{cite web |author=Frank Faragasso & Doug Stover |url=http://crm.cr.nps.gov/archive/20-3/20-3-30.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070612095007/http://crm.cr.nps.gov/archive/20-3/20-3-30.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-date=12 June 2007 |title=Adelaide Johnson: A marriage of art and politics |date=|accessdate=20 May 2018|work=National Capital Parks — East }}</ref> 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 shaft. Badly hurt, she sued for compensation and was awarded the sum of $15,000. 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.<ref> {{Cite web |url=http://www.lib.niu.edu/ipo/1997/iht419722.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060903122833/http://www.lib.niu.edu/ipo/1997/iht419722.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=3 September 2006 |title=Adelaide Johnson |last=Burton |first=Shirley J. |work=Women Making a Difference |pages=25 & 26 |accessdate=13 January 2008 }}</ref> She took the opportunity to study in Dresden and Rome, studying with Giulio Monteverde in Rome where she kept a studio until 1920.
[[Image:PortraitMonument.jpg|thumb|The ''Portrait Monument'' statue located in the United States Capitol rotunda. The ''Portrait Monument'' represents three women involved in the Women's Suffrage Movement, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Lucretia Mott]] Johnson exhibited her work, ''The Portrait Monument'' and a bust of Caroline B. Winslow at The Woman's Building at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois.<ref name="Nichols">{{cite web |last1=Nichols |first1=K. L. |title=Women's Art at the World's Columbian Fair & Exposition, Chicago 1893| url=http://arcadiasystems.org/academia/cassatt4bb.html#johnson| accessdate=4 January 2019}}</ref> 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 helped to secure funding for the piece, ''Portrait Monument to Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony'', which was unveiled in 1921.<ref> {{Cite web |url=http://www.pinn.net/~sunshine/whm2002/johnson.html |title=Adelaide Johnson |publisher=Sunshine for Women website |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20080720173122/http://www.pinn.net/~sunshine/whm2002/johnson.html |archivedate=2008-07-20 |accessdate=18 April 2012 }}</ref> This piece was originally kept on display in the crypt of the US Capitol, but was moved to its current location and more prominently displayed in the rotunda in 1997.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.aoc.gov/cc/art/rotunda/suffrage.cfm|title=Architect of the Capitol; Portrait Monument of Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony|publisher=}}</ref>
In 1896 she married Frederick Jenkins, a British businessman and fellow vegetarian who was eleven years younger than she. He took her family name of Johnson as "the tribute love pays to genius." They were wed by a woman minister, and her bridesmaids were the busts she had sculpted of Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. The marriage ended after twelve years.<ref name="Faragasso"/>
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 96. She is buried in Washington, D.C. at Congressional Cemetery.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.awomanaweek.com/johnson.htm |title=Adelaide Johnson |publisher=A Woman a Week website |accessdate=13 January 2008 |archive-date=23 July 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080723223522/http://www.awomanaweek.com/johnson.htm |url-status=dead }}</ref>
==Personal life==
Johnson became a vegetarian in her youth.<ref name="Burton 1986">Burton, Shirley J. (1986). [https://archive.org/details/adelaidejohnsont00burt/page/10/mode/2up ''Adelaide Johnson: To Make Immortal their Adventurous Will'']. Western Illinois University. pp. 11–12</ref> She was vegetarian because she believed it was morally wrong to take the life of any living creature.<ref>Weber, Sandra. (2016). ''The Woman Suffrage Statue: A History of Adelaide Johnson's Portrait Monument''. McFarland. p. 42. {{ISBN|978-1-4766-6346-3}}</ref> In 1893, Johnson was a speaker at the third International Vegetarian Congress in Chicago.<ref>[https://ivu.org/congress/1893/report3.html "3rd InternationalVegetarian Congress 1893"]. International Vegetarian Union (IVU). Retrieved 18 October 2020.</ref>
Johnson did not embrace a particular religion but took interest in Christian Science, spiritualism and Theosophy.<ref name="Burton 1986"/> She was a member of the National Spiritualist Association of Churches.<ref name="Burton 1986"/> Her niece, Alathena Johnson Smith, became a noted child psychologist.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Koch |first=Sharon Fay |date=1972-02-27 |title=Pep, Not Pedigree, Her Forte |pages=56 |work=The Los Angeles Times |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/121671144/pep-not-pedigree-her-fortesharon-fay/ |access-date=2023-03-26 |via=Newspapers.com}}</ref>
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== {{commons category-inline}} * [https://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/findingaids/johnsonadelaide/ Guide to the Adelaide Johnson Papers, 1884–1945], Rubenstein Library, Duke University
==Further reading== * [http://www.congressionalcemetery.org Congressional Cemetery], Washington DC
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Johnson, Adelaide}} Category:1859 births Category:1955 deaths Category:20th-century American sculptors Category:19th-century American sculptors Category:American feminists Category:American spiritualists Category:American vegetarianism activists Category:Burials at the Congressional Cemetery Category:People from Hancock County, Illinois Category:Sculptors from Illinois Category:20th-century American women sculptors Category:19th-century American women sculptors Category:Suffragists from Washington, D.C. Category:American women human rights activists