Pioneers

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Last February a dozen women set out to tour the U. S. First they visited Manhattan. Then they journeyed to Boston, from there to Pittsburgh and Buffalo, from there to the West. They were a curious company. Dressed in the style of the early 19th century, they remained totally impervious to the appraising stares of approximately 750,000 persons. Some of the twelve women had their children with them; some of them carried bundles. With the stolid determination of explorers or pioneers, they pursued their way through the flat lands of the Middle West, through the northern plains, through the Southwest.

It was well that these women bore some resemblance to pioneers. Each one was a four-foot statue intended as a model for a 35-foot bronze statue to be called The Pioneer Woman and to be erected, at the expense of E. W. Marland, President of the Marland Oil Co., near Ponca City, Okla. They had been touring U. S. cities so that those who saw them might say which one they liked the best. Last week George Marland, son to E. W. Marland announced that one of the twelve women had been selected for this honor.

The pioneer woman selected was not the ugly one executed by Mahonri Young; it was not the demure one executed by Jo Davidson; it was not the brawny one of James Earle Fraser, nor the placid one of Arthur Lee, nor the fragile one of F. Lynn Jenkins. Nor was it Maurice Sterne's, Hermon A. MacNeil's, Alexander Stirling Calder's, although these artists too were among those who made models for the competition.

It was not John Gregory's sturdy female, snatching a musket from her moribund husband, although this one ran second in the balloting and won first place in three cities. Instead, it was Bryant Baker's striding figure of a woman whose skirts are blown backward in a prairie breeze, who carries a Bible in one hand, leads her scampish belligerent little boy with the other. This had received most votes in eleven cities; by far the largest total out of the 123,000 votes cast.

Sculptor Baker is an Englishman with the face of a stage butler. He came to the U. S. 13 years ago and has since made busts of many notables, including Presidents Coolidge & Wilson. On being apprised of his success, he said: "I think I have pictured a woman who is about to do great things, with a lovely soul and a powerful body."

When recompleted, Sculptor Baker's enormous woman will be stationed on top of an elevation in the Cherokee Strip, once the last public land in the U. S. Around her will lie a park whose total cost, including the woman herself, will be $300,000.