Washington, D.C. is set to put the National Mall’s first monument explicitly dedicated to women’s history on the map, and organizers are inviting Americans everywhere to help shape what it will look like. With key federal approvals and recent site reviews in hand, the project has moved into a public design phase, and a nationwide call is now collecting sketches, nominations and stories that could influence the final memorial.
Organizers open a nationwide call for 'Monumental Ideas'
The Women’s Suffrage National Monument Foundation launched a nationwide "Monumental Ideas" call on March 27, 2026, inviting people to submit sketches, short descriptions, photographs, poems or nominations to inform the memorial’s design, according to the Women’s Suffrage National Monument Foundation. The campaign uses an online submission form and social prompts aimed at school groups and community organizations, and organizers say selected ideas will help shape a later design competition for the memorial that ultimately rises on the Mall.
Where it could sit on the Mall
Federal planning panels have identified the west end of Constitution Gardens, roughly near 19th Street and Constitution Avenue NW, as the sponsor’s preferred site, a finding recorded by the National Capital Planning Commission on Dec. 4, 2025, according to NCPC. The U.S. Commission of Fine Arts had earlier approved that preferred site in September 2025 and offered design guidance on how a landscape-based memorial might fit into the Reserve, according to the Commission of Fine Arts.
Design, funding and legal authority
Congress authorized the monument’s placement on the National Mall with the Women’s Suffrage National Monument Location Act, which became Public Law No. 118-226 on Jan. 4, 2025, giving the sponsor authority to move ahead on site selection and design under the Commemorative Works Act, per Congress.gov. Organizers say the project will be privately funded and will progress from the open-call phase into a formal design competition, followed by multi-agency review. National coverage has described the effort as a multi-year process that mixes fundraising, iterative design review and public outreach; Forbes has outlined typical budget and timeline expectations for projects of this scale.
Why it matters
Advocates and historians say the Mall’s commemorative landscape has long underrepresented women, a gap this monument is meant to confront head-on. Several outlets and the project’s backers have described the suffrage memorial as the first standalone Mall monument dedicated to women’s history. KTVU described it as the first time in roughly 250 years that the Mall will explicitly honor women, and The Washington Post has traced the policy debates and planning trade-offs that accompanied the push, as well as the project’s broader significance and controversies.
How to take part
The Foundation’s submission portal lays out how to prepare and upload an idea: take a photo of a drawing, model, poem or nomination, fill out the online form and upload a .jpg or .png file no larger than 10 MB. Submissions are due by July 4, 2026, according to the Foundation’s guidelines. The site also offers an educator toolkit, FAQs and rules for minors, who must have parental consent, and encourages entrants to share their work on social media using #Mymonumentalidea. For full instructions and to upload a submission, see the Women’s Suffrage National Monument Foundation submission page.
