The Washington National Monument in the City of Washington. Baltimore: A. Hoen & Co., n.d., circa 1859. Lower left imprint credits the designer of the monument, Robert Mills, with facsimile signatures of notable American statesmen, including John Quincy Adams, Franklin Pierce, Zachary Taylor, Henry Clay, and Daniel Webster. 11 1/2  x 8 3/4 inches.

Distributed either as a funding petition or a premium provided to financial supporters of the monument project, with partially printed donation record completed in manuscript and signed and dated by an agent of the Washington National Monument Society. Here, recognizing the contribution of "Miss Maria A. Hyde of the Lucy Female Institute" in the amount of "One Dollar to the erection of this Monument, Feb. 22, 1859," conveniently the date of Washington's birthday.

In 1833, when the newly formed Washington National Monument Society was tasked by Congress with the planning and construction of a monument honoring George Washington, its constitution explicitly limited membership to "adult male contributors." Construction of the monument began progresses smoothly until 1854, when funding insufficiencies necessitated a halt in construction. Incomplete at only 152 feet tall, the Washington Monument's fate was uncertain, until a women's fundraising effort reenergized the stalled project. The Ladies National Monument Society, founded in Chicago in 1859, took action to adequate funding to finishing the project. In a published appeal, the group stirringly asked the public, "The Monument of George Washington remains unfinished in the capital of the Republic he founded. Do you revere his name and memory?...Shall we prove recreant to the obligations this imposed on us?" By 1861, the group had collected nearly $300 in support of the cause, but it disbanded in 1863 during the Civil War. 

The recipient of this print, Maria A. Hyde, was a pioneer in her own right. She was a member of the inaugural class at the Lucy Cobb Institute in Athens, Georgia, which opened its doors on January 10, 1859. The girls' school was founded by politician Thomas R. R. Cobb in memory of his daughter, Lucy, who tragically succumbed to scarlet fever at a young age. Built on the (at the time) progressive belief that women possessed the same intellectual capabilities as men, the Institute sought to revolutionize women's education in the South. Maria’s donation, made just weeks after the school’s founding, reflects the feminine ideals of education and civic mindedness upon which the school was initially founded.

A remarkable artifact of American civic mobilization, representing a pivotal moment when the fate of the Washington Monument rested in the hands of the nation’s women.