Part of an original design submitted in 1912 for a Titanic memorial in Washington, to be set up by women in honour of the men who gave their lives.
This is a work by Mr Dana Gibson, which was ultimately rejected. Gibson places a hammer in the hand of womanhood, thus demonstrating that the memorial is a tribute from women to men, but also emphasising the capacities of the 'weaker sex' at a time when women's suffrage was a live issue.
The eventual Washington memorial was a figure with outstretched arms, designed by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, whose brother Alfred Vanderbilt was lost in the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915.
Perhaps the Gibson design was considered too politically controversial for its day.