Unforgetting a Forgotten Pioneer: How the 19th-Century Sculptor Edmonia Lewis Blazed the Path for Women of Color in the Fine Arts

On talent, violence, visibility, and the world-shifting power of women helping women.

This essay is excerpted from Figuring.

When the nineteenth-century sculptor Harriet Hosmer was blazing the way for women in art while living as an openly queer person in Rome, she took special care to use her visibility as a platform for making others visible, her success as an opportunity-broadening instrument for the success of others. The pioneering astronomer Maria Mitchell, who was doing for women in sci...