“On the Wings of Change”

Chicago Women Suffragists Mural

“On the Wings of Change”, a new mural by artist Diosa (Jasmina Cazacu), celebrates ten women who were involved in the early women’s suffrage movement in the Chicago area. Recently installed in the Wabash Arts Corridor between Jackson Blvd. and Ida B. Wells Drive, the mural was conceived and developed by The Chicago Womxn’s Suffrage Tribute Committee in collaboration with Columbia College Chicago’s Department of Exhibitions and Performing and Students Spaces.

The ten Chicago women suffragists depicted in the mural are: Jane Addams, Myra Bradwell, Mary Livermore, Catherine McCulloch, Agnes Nestor, Grace Wilbur Trout, Mary Fitzbutler Waring, Ida B. Wells Barnett, Fannie Barrier Williams and Frances Willard.

Extensive biographies, with references for further research, of all ten women are included in Chicago Women’s History Center’s book Women Building Chicago 1790 - 1990, A Biographical Dictionary edited by Rima Lunin Schultz and Adel Hast. Below are links to the biographies from Women Building Chicago of the women depicted in the mural.

More Chicago women’s biographies can be found in Women Building Chicago 1790 - 1990, A Biographical Dictionary and to read a brief history of women’s suffrage in Illinois click on the button below. Please note the information for this text has been drawn from the biographies in Women Building Chicago 1790 - 1990, A Biographical Dictionary and has been edited by Beth Loch, and Mary Ann Johnson.