No plans to replace Kirkwood statue

There are no plans to replace Iowa's other statue in the Capitol – one depicting Samuel Kirkwood, Iowa's governor during the Civil War and, like James Harlan, a former Secretary of the Interior.

However, the request to replace the Harlan statue prompted House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, D-Des Moines, to ask two of his caucus members to consider whether the other Iowa statue in the Capitol collection should be replaced. McCarthy wasn't suggesting the Kirkwood statue should be replaced, but thought it was worth asking if there might be an Iowan, perhaps a woman, who was deserving of such recognition.

About a dozen women – Helen Keller, Amelia Earhart and Sakakawea, for example -- are included in the statuary collection.

Rep. Beth Wessel-Kroeschell, D-Ames has no doubt there are Iowa women who could represent Iowa in the Capitol. However, she'd rather see a live woman representing Iowa than a statue.

“Among the groups of women who might want to see a woman recognized, they're more interested in electing a woman to Congress,” Wessel-Kroeschell said.

Among the women who might be considered for statuary depiction, Wessel-Kroeschell said, are Arabella Mansfield, who became the first female lawyer in the United States when she was admitted to the Iowa bar in 1869, and Edna Griffin – “Our own Rosa Parks” – who seven years before Parks famously refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama, bus, led a boycott of a Des Moines drug store after being refused service because she was black.

A statue of an Iowa woman could help young Iowa women “see themselves and see that in their future,” Wessel-Kroeschell said.