The exhibition touched a popular chord in American culture of the time. The "New York Times" reported on March 27, 1927 that among those who visited the exhibition at the Reinhardt Galleries was 91-year-old Betty Wollman who as a young bride had journeyed from St. Louis to Leavenworth Kansas in 1855 and had once entertained Abraham Lincoln as a dinner guest in the Wollman household in Leavenworth long before Lincoln was a candidate for president. Wollman spoke about women's role during pioneer days in the old west and congratulated Marland for his proposal to erect a statue to the Pioneer Woman. "Mr. Marland is to be congratulated for doing this in commemoration of these early women of the West," said Wollman. "The hardships were many, and the courage and self-denial of the women who worked side by side with their husbands and sons and brothers in those primitive days are largely responsible for the development of the Middle Western States, now so rich in everything that goes to make life worth living."