Lady Wisconsin

Madison, Wisconsin, United States

Public art

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Listed, not yet checked · Oct 2026

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Wisconsin is a gilded bronze statue by Daniel Chester French, 15 feet 5 inches tall and over three tons, on the dome of the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison since 1914. She holds a globe with an eagle and wears a badger-topped helmet.

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Lady Wisconsin

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Site-level location · 43.0747° N, 89.3842° W

FIELD GUIDE

The story

The gilded figure on top of Wisconsin's State Capitol is often mistaken for Miss Forward, but she is "Wisconsin", and she has stood on the dome since 1914.

Wisconsin Public Radio says the statue was sculpted by Daniel Chester French, who also made the Abraham Lincoln statue at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. It stands 15 feet 5 inches tall and weighs more than three tons. In her left hand she holds a globe with an eagle perched on it, and her helmet is topped with a badger. The Capitol's history site says she symbolises the state motto, "Forward", and records a cost of $20,325 for the statue and $444 to clean and re-gild it in 1932. According to Wisconsin Public Radio, the Capitol Commission decided that she should face Lake Monona.

The confusion is easy to trace. Forward is a different statue, by Wisconsin sculptor Jean Pond Miner, made for the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago and placed at the Capitol's east entrance in 1895. The original was removed after deterioration in the mid-1990s and put on permanent display in the lobby of the State Historical Society; a bronze replica went up on the State Street steps in August 1996.

Alumni Park in Madison adds a student joke: from the 1950s to the 1980s, University of Wisconsin students called the dome figure "Mrs. Rennebohm", after a governor who also owned a drugstore chain, because her outstretched arm supposedly pointed out sites for new stores.

Travel Wisconsin wrote in July 2026 that the Capitol, topped by the statue and 284 feet high, remains Madison's tallest building, a distinction protected by state law. The Capitol's history site gives 284.4 feet to the top of the statue; Travel Wisconsin's attractions page gives 265 feet for the dome.

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PRACTICAL

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WHAT TO EXPECT

The statue is on the exterior of the dome. Visit Madison says the Capitol is open to the public seven days a week with free guided tours; Travel Wisconsin (2026) lists a sixth-floor outdoor observation deck for the warmer months. The Capitol's own site gives Memorial Day through the first week of November for the lower observation deck.

ACCESS

Atop the dome of the Wisconsin State Capitol, 2 E Main St, Madison, a public building. The statue is on the dome exterior. Visit Madison says the Capitol is open to the public seven days a week.

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