The Waving Girl of Savannah: A Bronze Salute to Real Life Values and Legend

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Monuments and Statues to Women: Arrival of an Historical Reckoning of Memory and Commemoration", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Florence Martus, the “Waving Girl,” and the personified bronze statue erected to her memory, is an international symbol, local memorial, and modern tourist attraction with an inspiring story of real life and legend. The noble ideas expressed by the Waving Girl monument, said the sculptor, cannot be improved upon: loyalty, faithfulness, sympathy, "a warm heart." The "lost lover" myth that was associated with the story of the Waving Girl was created by seamen who did not know her. Today, the Waving Girl statue represents a mix of tourist industry interests, political expediency, and civic leadership, joined with the intended purpose of the sculptor and other layers of meaning ascribed through time. In the 1960s, tour guides called for a statue to impress tourists and add color to their tours. Surely the real Florence Martus was worth remembering for the values by which she lived her life.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2023   •
• Monuments and Statues to Women: Arrival of an Historical Reckoning of Memory and Commemoration

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow