How does Emancipation Memorial elucidate its 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 soldiers and other figures.Mr. Ball was well known through several works when, in 1865, under his first influence of the news of Lincoln's assassination, he'd individually conceived and completed an original half-life-size work in Italian marble. When Ball's design was finally chosen, on the order of the Freedman's Memorial Association, this design, with certain changes, was to be "expanded" to about nine feet high, as the final "Emancipation" group in Lincoln Park in 1876.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, a former slave, whose life story was popularized by 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 U.S. 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 grows 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: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
chain Lincoln Park Virginia Harriet Hosmer tightly curled hair shield right stars and stripes fasces republic William Greenleaf Eliot slave George Washington plinth cloth biography whipping post Thomas Ball pillory Archer Alexander Abraham Lincoln liberty cap draped Emancipation Proclamation vine patriotic Western Sanitary Commission black Civil War soldiers Munich