About this property
The Pioneer Woman statue is a work created by sculptor Leo Friedlander. It is located at the Texas Woman's University (TWU) in Denton, Texas, United States, and was commissioned as part of the Texas Centenary celebrations to mark the 100th anniversary of Texas Independence from Mexico. The sculpture was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2018. On June 3, 1935, the Board of Regents at TWU passed a resolution stating that it urged "the Centennial Commission of Control to allocate the sum of $30,000 for the erection of a statue to the Pioneer Women of Texas to be erected on the campus as a part of the Centennial celebration. The idea for this statue originated with this institution, and . . . . . . the erection of this statue on the campus will serve the women of the entire State, and will inspire their daughters to continued reference for the heroism and sacrifice of the pioneer women of the past who helped to make the Texas of the present." University President L.H. Hubbard, proposed the a statue to the Centennial Commission who agreed and responded by announcing an open competition for sculptors to design the statue. However "the design of the statue, including the choice of the sculptor, the design, etc, were to be handled under the direction of the State Board of Control, and that the College had nothing whatever to do with the matter." The Board at that time had to be satisfied with recommending a site on campus where the statue would be placed. In June 1936, the TWU Board of Regents passed a motion requesting that the Texas Centennial Commission "erect a Memorial Chapel to Pioneer Women on the campus instead of the Statue as proposed at the present time." Had either the Regents or the members of the Centennial Commission known what lay ahead they might well have agreed to this request, and as it turned out, the university did eventually get its chapel, the Little Chapel in the Woods, designed by architect O'Neil Ford. First lady Eleanor Roosevelt spoke at its dedication in 1939. By October 1936, plans for the statue were moving forward by "inviting a group of leading American sculptors, about 80 in number, to submit photographs of their work and from this group several sculptors are to be chosen who will be required to submit models of the proposed statue to the Centennial Commission of Control and if the first model submitted is not acceptable other models will be submitted until an accepted group is submitted." Foreshadowing if ever there was. Among the artists who entered the competition was the Texas sculptor Waldine Tauch, who entered seven different competitions conducted by the Commission. She was to win three of them (memorials to Moses Austin, Isaac and Frances Van Zandt and First Shot Fired For Texas Independence monument) but she was not able to garner the Pioneer Woman statue. However, she was to play a part in the ensuing drama.
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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).
Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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Questions about this property
When was Pioneer Woman Monument listed on the National Register?
Pioneer Woman Monument was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on April 19, 2018.
What type of historic resource is Pioneer Woman Monument?
Pioneer Woman Monument is classified as a object in the National Register of Historic Places.
What is the period of significance for Pioneer Woman Monument?
The period of significance for Pioneer Woman Monument is recorded as the colonial era.
Can I research the history near Pioneer Woman Monument?
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