Statue of the Republic
Encyclopedia
Bronze
Bronze is a metal alloy consisting primarily of copper, usually with tin as the main additive. It is hard and brittle, and it was particularly significant in antiquity, so much so that the Bronze Age was named after the metal...
sculpture in Jackson Park
Jackson Park (Chicago)
Jackson Park is a 500 acre park on Chicago's South Side, located at 6401 South Stony Island Avenue in the Woodlawn community area. It extends into the South Shore and Hyde Park community areas, bordering Lake Michigan and several South Side neighborhoods...
, Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
. The statue was built in 1918 to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition
World's Columbian Exposition
The World's Columbian Exposition was a World's Fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. Chicago bested New York City; Washington, D.C.; and St...
held in Chicago and the Illinois statehood centennial. The statue was funded by the Benjamin Ferguson
Benjamin Ferguson
Benjamin Franklin Ferguson was an American lumber merchant and philanthropist whose 1905 $1 million charitable trust gift funded seventeen of the most notable public monuments and sculptures in Chicago, Illinois, United States...
Fund., which commissioned Daniel Chester French
Daniel Chester French
Daniel Chester French was an American sculptor. His best-known work is the sculpture of a seated Abraham Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.-Life and career:...
, the sculptor of the original 65 feet (19.8 m) statue that stood on the grounds of the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, to sculpt this smaller replica. Henry Bacon
Henry Bacon
Henry Bacon was an American Beaux-Arts architect who is best remembered for the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. , which was his final project.- Education and early career :...
, architect of the Lincoln Memorial, designed the pedestal for the 1918 Republic.
The original statue stood in front of the Court of Honor at the World's Columbian Exposition. However, in 1896, the original 65-foot statue succumbed to a fire, destroying it. The current statue stands on the site of the Exposition's famous Electricity Building.
The statue was designated a Chicago Landmark
Chicago Landmark
Chicago Landmark is a designation of the Mayor of Chicago and the Chicago City Council for historic buildings and other sites in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Listed sites are selected after meeting a combination of criteria, including historical, economic, architectural, artistic, cultural,...
on June 4, 2003.