Evelyn Beatrice Longman

Poor, motherless at 5, uneducated after elementary school, Mary Evelyn Beatrice Longman made the presumptuous and ludicrous claim in 1893, at age 19, that she could create monumental public sculptures. And, despite the fact that this was a field dominated by men, she did: the Genius of Electricity atop the AT&T tower in New York City; ornamentation of Lincoln speeches inside the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.; Thomas Edison in the Deutsches Museum, Munich, and the Naval Research Lab, Washington D.C.; chapel doors at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., and Wellesley College in Massachusetts; the William Boyd Allison Memorial on the grounds of the Iowa State Capitol, plus other monumental pieces and more than 100 portraits. She was the first woman sculptor to become a full member of the National Academy of Design.

The story of Evelyn Beatrice Longman's success embodies themes of recognizing our deepest desire in life and finding a way to live it. She made her own way despite economic conditions, societal pressures, personal trials, cultural barriers, family expectations, and public opinion. This book tells the story of how this uneducated, impoverished young woman created beauty in such a big way; how she moved into a milieu so different from her childhood, and succeeded in a field of art that was overwhelmingly dominated by men. It is a multi-layered story of family separations; gender discrimination; finding ways to express values in art while meeting the demands of those who gave her commissions; making choices around marriage, family, and career; and negotiating frequent illness. It is an account of sacrifice and triumph amid changing times as well as the timeless human challenge of negotiating life with integrity.