The Arizona Women’s Historical League wants to place a statue of suffragist leader Francis Willard Munds in the Wesley Bolin Memorial Square.

State of play: A completed statue of Mundo, created by local artist Stephanie Hunter, awaits its new home.

• The Alliance will need to raise approximately $60,000 to reach its $280,000 goal. According to their website.
• It also plans to meet soon with the Legislative Council and the Arizona State Department of Administration to determine the exact location of the statue.

What’s next: The president of the alliance’s board of directors, Melanie Sturgeon, wanted the statue to be erected by Nov. 5, the anniversary of women’s voting rights in Arizona, but the process involved expectations. It took longer than that.

• Mike Brown, executive director of the Legislative Council, said once the funding is complete, there will be a green light to proceed.

Flashback: Munds was the leader of the women’s suffrage movement in Arizona.

• After gaining statehood in 1912, she became president of the Arizona Equal Suffrage Association and led a campaign to put a women’s suffrage bill on the ballot, which voters overwhelmingly approved.
• Arizona gave women the right to vote eight years before ratifying the 19th Amendment. Sturgeon added, “It may not sound like a big deal, but these women didn’t sit still. They could help with a lot of the changes.”
• Munds was elected to represent Yavapai County in the Arizona Senate in 1914, becoming one of Arizona’s first two female representatives.

What they say: “I think 95% of people in Arizona don’t know who Frances Willard Manns is,” Sturgeon told Axios Phoenix.

• She added, “She really understood building coalitions and things like that, so she deserves the honor of the statue.”

Important reasons: There are very few statues of women in Arizona, and there are still few statues of individuals.

• The only monuments to individual women that Sturgeon knew of include the Sandra Day O’Connor, a federal courthouse named after her in downtown Phoenix, and the Sedona Pavilion, from which the town of Sedona is named. Includes Schnebly.
• Other female statues are meant to represent broader groups, such as the Arizona Pioneer Women Monument in Bolin Plaza and the Madonna of the Trail statue in Springerville.
• Only 6% of America’s monuments are based on real women. Chelsea Blasted of Axios reported.

you tell us: Which Arizona woman do you think should be honored with a statue?

• We’ll follow up next week with an article on recommendations from readers and historians.
• of Arizona Women’s Hall of Fame It features many of the most notable women in our state’s history.
• If there is a prominent female figure in Arizona history, please let us know.