Emancipation Memorial
Encyclopedia
The Emancipation Memorial, also known as the Freedman’s Memorial or the Emancipation Group, and sometimes referred to as the "Lincoln Memorial
" before the present more prominent so-named memorial was built, is a monument in Lincoln Park
in the Capitol Hill
neighborhood of Washington, D.C.
Designed and sculpted by Thomas Ball
and erected in 1876, the monument depicts Abraham Lincoln
in his role of the "Great Emancipator
" freeing a male African American
slave modeled on Archer Alexander
. The ex-slave is depicted crouching shirtless and shackle
d at the president
's feet.
The monument has long been the subject of controversy. According to information from American University
:
Despite being paid for by African Americans, because of the supplicant and inferior position of the Black
figure, historian Kirk Savage in 1997 condemned it as "a monument entrenched in and perpetuating racist
ideology
".
The statue is a contributing monument to the Civil War Monuments in Washington, DC
, of the National Register of Historic Places
.
to her former master for the purpose of creating a memorial honoring Lincoln.
The Western Sanitary Commission, a St. Louis
-based volunteer war-relief agency run by white people
, got involved and raised some $20,000 before announcing a new $50,000 goal.
According to the National Park Service
:
The turbulent politics of the reconstruction era affected the fundraising campaign on many levels. The “Colored
People’s Educational Monument Association” headed by Henry Highland Garnet
wanted the monument to be a very utilitarian one -- a school where freedmen could elevate themselves through learning. Fredrick Douglass, thinking the goal of education incommensurate with that of remembering Lincoln, disagreed.
and other figures.
When Ball's design was finally chosen, the commission insisted on certain changes. Instead of wearing a liberty cap
, the slave in the revised monument is depicted bare-headed with tightly curled hair. The face was re-sculpted to look like Archer Alexander, an ex-slave whose life story was popularized through a biography
written by William Greenleaf Eliot
.
In the final design, as in Ball's original design, Lincoln holds a copy of the Emancipation Proclamation
in his right hand. The document rests on a plinth
bearing patriotic symbols including George Washington
's profile, the fasces
of the American republic
, and a shield
emblazoned with the stars and stripes
. The plinth replaces the pile of books in Ball's original design. Behind the two figures is a whipping post
draped
with cloth. A vine
growns around the pillory and around the ring where the chain
was secured.
The monument was cast in Munich
in 1875 and shipped to Washington the following year. Congress accepted the statue as a gift from the "colored citizens of the United States" and appropriated $3,000 for a pedestal upon which it would rest. The statue was erected in Lincoln Park where it still stands.
A plaque on the monument names it as "Freedom's Memorial in grateful memory of Abraham Lincoln" and reads:
spoke at as the keynote speaker at the dedication service attended by then President Ulysses S. Grant
. Douglass said the statue "showed the Negro on his knees when a more manly attitude would have been indicative of freedom." Local newspapers did not report Douglass' criticism of the statue, but audience member John Cromwell, a Howard University
historian, recorded the remarks for posterity.
In 1879 Moses Kimball
donated to Boston a copy of the Emancipation Group. It is sited in Park Square. (Thomas Ball was a former employee of Kimball's.)
An early small demonstration version was purchased from Ball and brought to Methuen, Massachusetts
by Edward Francis Searles
where it rests in the Town Hall atrium.
Lincoln Memorial
The Lincoln Memorial is an American memorial built to honor the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln. It is located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The architect was Henry Bacon, the sculptor of the main statue was Daniel Chester French, and the painter of the interior...
" before the present more prominent so-named memorial was built, is a monument in Lincoln Park
Lincoln Park (Washington D.C.)
Lincoln Park is an urban park located in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Washington, D.C. It was planned by Pierre Charles L'Enfant to be the point from which all distances in North America would be measured....
in the Capitol Hill
Capitol Hill, Washington, D.C.
Capitol Hill, aside from being a metonym for the United States Congress, is the largest historic residential neighborhood in Washington D.C., stretching easterly in front of the United States Capitol along wide avenues...
neighborhood of Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
Designed and sculpted by Thomas Ball
Thomas Ball (artist)
Thomas Ball was an American artist and musician. His work has had a marked influence on monumental art in the United States, especially in New England.-Life:...
and erected in 1876, the monument depicts Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
in his role of the "Great Emancipator
Emancipation Proclamation
The Emancipation Proclamation is an executive order issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, during the American Civil War using his war powers. It proclaimed the freedom of 3.1 million of the nation's 4 million slaves, and immediately freed 50,000 of them, with nearly...
" freeing a male African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
slave modeled on Archer Alexander
Archer Alexander
Archer Alexander was a former black slave who served as the model for the slave in the statue, variously known as Freedom Memorial and the Emancipation Memorial located in Lincoln Park...
. The ex-slave is depicted crouching shirtless and shackle
Shackle
A shackle, also known as a gyve, is a U-shaped piece of metal secured with a clevis pin or bolt across the opening, or a hinged metal loop secured with a quick-release locking pin mechanism...
d at the president
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
's feet.
The monument has long been the subject of controversy. According to information from American University
American University
American University is a private, Methodist, liberal arts, and research university in Washington, D.C. The university was chartered by an Act of Congress on December 5, 1892 as "The American University", which was approved by President Benjamin Harrison on February 24, 1893...
:
If there is one slavery monument whose origins are highly political, the Freedman’s memorial is it. The development process for this memorial started immediately after Abraham Lincoln’s assassinationAbraham Lincoln assassinationThe assassination of United States President Abraham Lincoln took place on Good Friday, April 14, 1865, as the American Civil War was drawing to a close. The assassination occurred five days after the commanding General of the Army of Northern Virginia, Robert E. Lee, and his battered Army of...
and ended, appropriately enough, near the end of Reconstruction in 1876. In many ways, it exemplified and reflected the hopes, dreams, striving, and ultimate failures of reconstruction.
Despite being paid for by African Americans, because of the supplicant and inferior position of the Black
Black people
The term black people is used in systems of racial classification for humans of a dark skinned phenotype, relative to other racial groups.Different societies apply different criteria regarding who is classified as "black", and often social variables such as class, socio-economic status also plays a...
figure, historian Kirk Savage in 1997 condemned it as "a monument entrenched in and perpetuating racist
Racism in the United States
Racism in the United States has been a major issue since the colonial era and the slave era. Legally sanctioned racism imposed a heavy burden on Native Americans, African Americans, Asian Americans, and Latin Americans...
ideology
Ideology
An ideology is a set of ideas that constitutes one's goals, expectations, and actions. An ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things , as in common sense and several philosophical tendencies , or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to...
".
The statue is a contributing monument to the Civil War Monuments in Washington, DC
Civil War Monuments in Washington, DC
Civil War Monuments in Washington, D.C. is a group of 18 statues, that are spread out through much of central and northwest Washington, D.C. The statues depict 11 Union generals, and only one Confederate general, Albert Pike, who is depicted as a Mason rather than a military man. Two Union...
, of the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
.
Funding
The funding drive for the monument began, according to much publicized newspapers accounts from the era, with $5 given by former slave Charlotte Scott of VirginiaVirginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
to her former master for the purpose of creating a memorial honoring Lincoln.
The Western Sanitary Commission, a St. Louis
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...
-based volunteer war-relief agency run by white people
White people
White people is a term which usually refers to human beings characterized, at least in part, by the light pigmentation of their skin...
, got involved and raised some $20,000 before announcing a new $50,000 goal.
According to the National Park Service
National Park Service
The National Park Service is the U.S. federal agency that manages all national parks, many national monuments, and other conservation and historical properties with various title designations...
:
The campaign for the Freedmen's Memorial Monument to Abraham Lincoln, as it was to be known, was not the only effort of the time to build a monument to Lincoln; however, as the only one soliciting contributions exclusively from those who had most directly benefited from Lincoln's act of emancipation it had a special appeal...The funds were collected solely from freed slaves (primarily from African American Union veteransMilitary history of African Americans in the U.S. Civil WarThe history of African Americans in the American Civil War is marked by 186,097 African Americans comprising 163 units who served in the Union Army during the Civil War, and many more African Americans who served in the Union Navy. Both free African Americans and runaway slaves joined the fight...
)...
The turbulent politics of the reconstruction era affected the fundraising campaign on many levels. The “Colored
Colored
Colored is a term once widely used in the United States to describe black people and Native Americans...
People’s Educational Monument Association” headed by Henry Highland Garnet
Henry Highland Garnet
Henry Highland Garnet was an African American abolitionist and orator. An advocate of militant abolitionism, Garnet was a prominent member of the abolition movement that led against moral suasion toward more political action. Renowned for his skills as a public speaker, he urged blacks to take...
wanted the monument to be a very utilitarian one -- a school where freedmen could elevate themselves through learning. Fredrick Douglass, thinking the goal of education incommensurate with that of remembering Lincoln, disagreed.
Design and construction
Harriet Hosmer proposed a grander monument than that suggested by Thomas Ball. Her design, which was ultimately deemed too expensive, posed Lincoln atop a tall central pillar flanked by smaller pillars topped with Black Civil War soldiersMilitary history of African Americans in the U.S. Civil War
The history of African Americans in the American Civil War is marked by 186,097 African Americans comprising 163 units who served in the Union Army during the Civil War, and many more African Americans who served in the Union Navy. Both free African Americans and runaway slaves joined the fight...
and other figures.
When Ball's design was finally chosen, the commission insisted on certain changes. Instead of wearing a liberty cap
Liberty cap
Chiefly it refers to:*liberty cap, a brimless felt cap, such as the Phrygian cap or pileus, emblematic of a slave's manumission in the Ancient World.The phrase may also refer to:*Liberty Cap, a celebrated granite dome in Yosemite National Park...
, the slave in the revised monument is depicted bare-headed with tightly curled hair. The face was re-sculpted to look like Archer Alexander, an ex-slave whose life story was popularized through a biography
Biography
A biography is a detailed description or account of someone's life. More than a list of basic facts , biography also portrays the subject's experience of those events...
written by William Greenleaf Eliot
William Greenleaf Eliot
William Greenleaf Eliot was an American educator, Unitarian minister, and civic leader in Missouri. He is most notable for founding Washington University in St. Louis, but also contributed to the founding of numerous other civic institutions, such as the St...
.
Compared to the original design, in which Lincoln’s hand seems to awaken the slave to his new freedom and to the realization that his shackles are gone, the current memorial is more of an amalgamation of approaches. It is no longer allegorical but realistic. In fact, Lincoln never met Archer Alexander, so it is historically inaccurate. While the original design poses a question —will this slave become a man? — the revision erases that query and instead implies a relationship between two men who never actually knew each other.
In the final design, as in Ball's original design, Lincoln holds a copy of the Emancipation Proclamation
Emancipation Proclamation
The Emancipation Proclamation is an executive order issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, during the American Civil War using his war powers. It proclaimed the freedom of 3.1 million of the nation's 4 million slaves, and immediately freed 50,000 of them, with nearly...
in his right hand. The document rests on a plinth
Plinth
In architecture, a plinth is the base or platform upon which a column, pedestal, statue, monument or structure rests. Gottfried Semper's The Four Elements of Architecture posited that the plinth, the hearth, the roof, and the wall make up all of architectural theory. The plinth usually rests...
bearing patriotic symbols including George Washington
George Washington
George Washington was the dominant military and political leader of the new United States of America from 1775 to 1799. He led the American victory over Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army from 1775 to 1783, and presided over the writing of...
's profile, the fasces
Fasces
Fasces are a bundle of wooden sticks with an axe blade emerging from the center, which is an image that traditionally symbolizes summary power and jurisdiction, and/or "strength through unity"...
of the American republic
Republic
A republic is a form of government in which the people, or some significant portion of them, have supreme control over the government and where offices of state are elected or chosen by elected people. In modern times, a common simplified definition of a republic is a government where the head of...
, and a shield
Shield
A shield is a type of personal armor, meant to intercept attacks, either by stopping projectiles such as arrows or redirecting a hit from a sword, mace or battle axe to the side of the shield-bearer....
emblazoned with the stars and stripes
Flag of the United States
The national flag of the United States of America consists of thirteen equal horizontal stripes of red alternating with white, with a blue rectangle in the canton bearing fifty small, white, five-pointed stars arranged in nine offset horizontal rows of six stars alternating with rows...
. The plinth replaces the pile of books in Ball's original design. Behind the two figures is a whipping post
Pillory
The pillory was a device made of a wooden or metal framework erected on a post, with holes for securing the head and hands, formerly used for punishment by public humiliation and often further physical abuse, sometimes lethal...
draped
Drapery
Drapery is a general word referring to cloths or textiles . It may refer to cloth used for decorative purposes – such as around windows – or to the trade of retailing cloth, originally mostly for clothing, formerly conducted by drapers.In art history, drapery refers to any cloth or...
with cloth. A vine
Vine
A vine in the narrowest sense is the grapevine , but more generally it can refer to any plant with a growth habit of trailing or scandent, that is to say climbing, stems or runners...
growns around the pillory and around the ring where the chain
Chain
A chain is a sequence of connected links.Chain may also refer to:Chain may refer to:* Necklace - a jewelry which is worn around the neck* Mail , a type of armor made of interlocking chain links...
was secured.
The monument was cast in Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
in 1875 and shipped to Washington the following year. Congress accepted the statue as a gift from the "colored citizens of the United States" and appropriated $3,000 for a pedestal upon which it would rest. The statue was erected in Lincoln Park where it still stands.
A plaque on the monument names it as "Freedom's Memorial in grateful memory of Abraham Lincoln" and reads:
This monument was erected by the Western Sanitary Commission of Saint Louis Mo: With funds contributed solely by emancipated citizens of the United States declared free by his proclamation January 1 A.D. 1863. The first contribution of five dollars was made by Charlotte Scott. A freedwoman of Virginia being her first earnings in freedom and consecrated by her suggestion and request on the day she heard of President Lincoln's death to build a monument to his memory
Dedication
Frederick DouglassFrederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass was an American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman. After escaping from slavery, he became a leader of the abolitionist movement, gaining note for his dazzling oratory and incisive antislavery writing...
spoke at as the keynote speaker at the dedication service attended by then President Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant was the 18th President of the United States as well as military commander during the Civil War and post-war Reconstruction periods. Under Grant's command, the Union Army defeated the Confederate military and ended the Confederate States of America...
. Douglass said the statue "showed the Negro on his knees when a more manly attitude would have been indicative of freedom." Local newspapers did not report Douglass' criticism of the statue, but audience member John Cromwell, a Howard University
Howard University
Howard University is a federally chartered, non-profit, private, coeducational, nonsectarian, historically black university located in Washington, D.C., United States...
historian, recorded the remarks for posterity.
Other versions
Moses Kimball
Moses Kimball was a U.S. politician and showman. Kimball was a close associate of P. T. Barnum, and public-spirited citizen of Boston, Massachusetts.-Biography:...
donated to Boston a copy of the Emancipation Group. It is sited in Park Square. (Thomas Ball was a former employee of Kimball's.)
An early small demonstration version was purchased from Ball and brought to Methuen, Massachusetts
Methuen, Massachusetts
Methuen is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 43,789 at the 2000 census.-History:Methuen was first settled in 1642 and was officially incorporated in 1726; it is named for the British diplomat Sir Paul Methuen. Methuen was originally part of Haverhill,...
by Edward Francis Searles
Edward Francis Searles
Edward Francis Searles was an interior and architectural designer.-Biography:Searles was born on July 4, 1841, in Methuen, Massachusetts, USA to Jesse Gould Searles and Sarah Searles...
where it rests in the Town Hall atrium.