Monuments to Midwestern Pioneer Mothers and Native Women

Local sculptor John K. Daniels's 1936 monument for Minneapolis, Minnesota's new Pioneer Park bore striking similarities in style and meaning to other early midwestern pioneer monuments.

Fig 1.

John K. Daniels, Pioneers Monument, Minneapolis, Minnesota, as of March 2013. Photo by author.

Figurative sculptures honored Euro-American settler men's hard work hewing farms out of the wilderness, accompanied by a self-sacrificing "pioneer mother" symbolizing the arrival of White Christian culture on the frontier. A bas relief on the reverse of the monument nodded to French settlement of the region by depicting Native American men—but no women—welcoming French explorers to their homelands. While dozens of monuments erected across the United States by women's clubs in the early twentieth century emphasized women's roles carrying White "civilization" westward, Daniels's placing of his pioneer mother figure in a supporting role was typical of many midwestern monuments. Most midwestern statues glorified White men for conquering the wilderness that Native men yielded, portrayed White settler women as supporting players to their men, and erased Native women's presence from the region altogether.

This essay will argue that in contrast to better-known monuments in the Far West, which largely featured "cowboys and Indians" memories of the Old West or solo pioneer mothers embodying Euro-American civilization, most midwestern monuments erected between the 1890s and 1930s emphasized the process of U.S. westward expansion or White homemaking.¹ Midwestern pioneer monuments, which outnumbered those in the Far West, celebrated the family values long associated in popular memory with America's supposed rural heartland. Monuments erected in the Midwest early in the twentieth century—like Minneapolis's 1936 Pioneers Monument—tended to emphasize White settler men's hard work establishing new farms and communities. Midwestern pioneer mothers typically appeared as self-sacrificing supporting characters—again like the female figure in Minneapolis's Pioneers—emphasizing pioneer men's good intentions. Contemporaneous monuments erected in former Spanish and Mexican territories (including California, Arizona, and Texas) grappled in various ways with the persistence of Indigenous and Spanish-speaking populations. A few in the Midwest portrayed Native men yielding to White male explorers or settlers prior to the arrival of White women, or hinted at European immigrant influences, but most ignored non-Anglo-American residents. Native women appeared only rarely as symbols of Indigenous acquiescence to White manhood.

Recent decades have seen a resurgence in interest in public statuary throughout the United States. Midwestern communities are once again erecting monuments to the region's nineteenth-century residents. But instead of passive, self-sacrificing White mothers standing by their men,

Fig 2.

Dale Lamphere, Dignity of Earth and Sky, Chamberlain, South Dakota, as of October 2021. "Woman standing near tall Dignity statue on a bluff overlooking the Missouri River off Interstate 90 near Chamberlain, South Dakota." Photo by Glenn Nagel/Alamy Stock Photo.

twenty-first-century pioneer monuments portray more active and vibrant female characters. Moreover, some Midwesterners are vocally challenging the racial implications of earlier imagery.

Calls for more inclusive monuments have begun to bear fruit. In 2016, Chamberlain, South Dakota, erected Dignity of Earth & Sky, a sculpture of a solo Native American woman. Far from yielding or disappearing in the face of White settlement, the Native woman stands proudly, actively displaying a star quilt representing Lakota and Dakota culture that adapted and responded to Euro-American influences. While not as imposing as Chamberlain's fifty-foot-tall Dignity, other midwestern communities have also begun to honor both Native and White women as community leaders.

Early midwestern pioneer monuments erased the region's Indigenous, Métis, and other non-Anglo populations to an even greater extent than did those installed in the Far West. Most midwestern frontier-themed monuments depict middle-class White family values made possible by masculine persistence and maternal sacrifice. But, like western pioneer monuments, midwestern monuments have grown more diverse and inclusive in recent decades. Monuments to European immigrant groups portray their subjects as...