

The statue depicts Sojourner Truth speaking, Susan B. The competition was coordinated and managed by architecture firm Beyer Blinder Belle Architects & Planners LLP.

Four qualified finalists were invited to submit models for the monument with Bergmann ultimately receiving the commission. The submissions were reviewed in a blind selection process by a diverse jury consisting of art and design professionals, historians and representatives from the New York City Parks Department and the Monumental Women. 91 artists from across the nation applied. The call for sculptors involved a Request for Qualifications and Request for Proposals, in which Monumental Women invited sculptors to submit illustrations of previous work, curriculum vitae and their approach to the design of the monument in sketch, text form or both. In 1995, the artist Meredith Bergmann was working on a film set in Central Park and noticed there were "no sculptures of actual women of note and accomplishment." and 23 years later she was the sculptor who was awarded the commission for the design chosen to honor women of the suffrage movement in Central Park.

The sculpture was unveiled in Central Park on August 26, 2020, also celebrated as Women’s Equality Day, to mark the centennial anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote nationwide. The New York City Public Design Commission approved Bergmann’s statue design on October 21, 2019. The Women’s Rights Pioneers Monument was created by sculptor Meredith Bergmann, who in July 2018 was chosen out of 91 artists who applied for the commission to create the statue. Senators, as well as historians, foundations, and others. The effort has the support of numerous elected officials, including Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, every member of the New York City Council Women’s Caucus, Congresswomen, U.S. Several troops of the Girl Scouts of Greater New York have donated money from their cookie sales to the fund and the fund has received a $500,000 grant from New York Life. The statue campaign is dependent on private donations. Monumental Women raised $1.5 million in mostly private funding to pay for the statue, including contributions from foundations, businesses and over 1,000 individual donations.

Since 2013, the Statue Fund/Monumental Women campaign dealt with the City to "break the bronze ceiling" in Central Park to create the first statue of real women in the Park's 165-year history. (A statue of the fictional character Alice in Wonderland is the only other female figure depicted in the park.) Original plans for the memorial included only Stanton and Anthony, but after critics raised objections to the lack of inclusion of women of color, Truth was added to the design. It is the first sculpture in Central Park to depict historical women. Anthony (1820–1906), and Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902), pioneers in the suffrage movement who advocated women’s right to vote and who were pioneers of the larger movement for women’s rights. The sculpture commemorates and depicts Sojourner Truth ( c. The sculpture is located at the northwest corner of Literary Walk along The Mall, the widest pedestrian path in Central Park. It was installed in Central Park, Manhattan, New York City, on August 26 ( Women's Equality Day), 2020. The Women's Rights Pioneers Monument is a sculpture by Meredith Bergmann.
