| The figure of the Madonna of the Trail, following so closely after the Nemacolin signs, provokes reflection on which groups are absent in roadside memorialization. Erected in 1928 by the Daughters of the American Revolution in connection with the National Old Trails movement, this statue is one of a dozen placed on the Road. While women have been instrumental in perpetuating these patriotic shrines, they are rarely depicted on memorials. This figure represents all pioneer women, just as Nemacolin has been summoned to stand in for western Pennsylvania's aboriginal population. Further, it appears that the only concession sculptor Leimbach made to his subject's gender was to add breasts to a sinewy, square-jawed masculine figure. -- "Cumberland to Wheeling, West Virginia"; by Karen Koegler and Kenneth Pavelchak; in A Guide To the National Road, Karl Raitz Ed. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996 |
