Chicago parks have zero statues of women, 48 statues of men

Plenty of men are memorialized in stone and bronze in Chicago’s parks: Explorer Leif Ericson, president George Washington, former Illinois governor John Peter Altgeld, even Greene Vardiman Black. Not familiar with him? He’s the "father of modern dentistry." Chicago’s public spaces do have statues of female figures — nymphs, goddesses, and Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz to name a few — but you won’t find a single statue or bust of a historically significant woman in any of the city’s 580 parks.

“It’s really time to honor more females,” said Asya Akca, a University of Chicago political science major who is pushing for a statue of a notable woman on her campus in Hyde Park. “It’s a huge oversight that they’re not being honored.”

According to the Chicago Park District, there are no statues of women in our city’s parks because the heyday of public figurative sculpture in the United States took place at a time before women had earned the right to vote.

To rectify that lack of representation, the district has named and renamed more than 40 parks to honor the legacies of notable women over the last 11 years. There are now 66 parks named after women in Chicago, according to the park district. Yet, during that same period, figurative statues and busts of men have continued to be erected around the city.

In 2004, a tribute featuring several figurative bas-relief sculptures of George Halas, founder of the Chicago Bears, went up near Gate 15 of Soldier Field in Burnham Park. That same year, Martin Luther King Park on West 76th Street in Auburn Gresham got a bust of the civil rights leader. WBEZ has the story.