Abraham Lincoln: The Hoosier Youth

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Coordinates: 41°04′26″N 85°08′23″W / 41.0738°N 85.1398°W / 41.0738; -85.1398
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Abraham Lincoln: The Hoosier Youth
U.S.
OwnerLincoln National Corporation

Abraham Lincoln, The Hoosier Youth is a heroic bronze sculpture by American artist

bas reliefs, one for each side of the pedestal, to represent traits associated with Lincoln: Charity, Fortitude, Justice and Patriotism.[1]
The statue was dedicated on 16 September 1932.

Description

The Lincoln sculpture is installed between two wings in the forecourt of the Lincoln National Life Insurance Company's former headquarters building in Fort Wayne, Indiana.[2][3] The heroic bronze statue stands approximately 12.5 feet (3.8 m) tall and depicts Lincoln as a youthful frontiersman with a serious, reflective, and slightly melancholy expression—characteristics used to describe Lincoln's demeanor throughout his life.[4][5][6] Lincoln is seated on a tree stump and holds a partially closed book in his proper right hand. An ax leans against his proper right leg. His proper left hand rests on the head of a dog seated beside him.[5] Lincoln wears a homemade linsey-woolsey shirt, buckskin trousers, and boots to emphasize his frontier background.[5][7] The ax represents Lincoln's youth in Indiana's backwoods, the book symbolizes his intellect, and the dog is a symbol of his love of animals, human empathy, and protectiveness.[7]

Although it is not known if Lincoln had a dog in his youth, Lincoln biographer William Herndon relates a story of Lincoln's refusal to leave a dog behind when the family moved west to Illinois in 1830. According to Herndon, after a stranded dog traveling with the wagon party refused to cross an icy stream, the twenty-one-year-old Lincoln removed his shoes and socks, waded across the chilly water to retrieve the dog, and carried it back in his arms to rejoin the group.[8][9]

Manship's bronze statue rests on a pedestal designed by Benjamin Wistar Morris, the architect for the Lincoln National building who was also a sculptor.

art deco manner that typifies Manship's work. The pedestal sits on a granite base with an overall height of 22 feet (6.7 m).[4][10]

Historical information

In 1928 the Lincoln National Life Insurance Company commissioned sculptor Paul Manship to produce a statue of Abraham Lincoln for its headquarters in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The company's officers wanted "an outstanding creation of art which would be one of the recognized monuments of the world and which, as such, would attract universal admiration"[11] Benjamin Wistar Morris, the architect for Lincoln National's headquarters in Fort Wayne, recommended Manship for the project.[5]

Manship intended to depict Lincoln as a youthful dreamer and poet rather than an older frontiersman and railsplitter.

Brussels, Belgium, and shipped to the United States, where the statue and four relief medallions were completed in Manship's New York studio during the winter of 1931–32.[10][5] The sculpture was dedicated in Fort Wayne on 16 September 1932.[8][10] The plaster model is today kept at the Musée bruxellois des industries et du travail, in Brussels, Belgium, located on the site of the factory of the Compagnie des Bronzes.[15]

A picture of the statue is featured on the dust jacket and the inside front cover of Marks of Lincoln on Our Land.[2]

Artist

Main article: Paul Manship

Paul Howard Manship (1885–1966), who was born in

St. Paul, Minnesota, was an experienced sculptor with an international reputation when he received the commission for the Lincoln sculpture in 1928.[16][17] Manship familiarized himself with Lincoln's youth by touring the areas where Lincoln lived in Kentucky and Indiana to prepare for the project; there were no photographs taken of Lincoln until he was 37 years of age. Manship also consulted with Lincoln scholars and biographers: Louis Warren, who was a director at Lincoln National, Carl Sandburg, and Ida Tarbell, among others.[12][5] Manship received $75,000 for the Lincoln statue, an "astonishing" amount considering it was completed in 1932 in the midst of the Great Depression.[7]

  • Justice
    Justice
  • Fortitude
    Fortitude
  • Charity
    Charity

See also

References

  1. ^
    ISBN 0-87195-180-0
    .
  2. ^ a b Redway, Maurine Whorton; Dorothy Kendall Bracken (1957). Marks of Lincoln on Our Land. New York: Hastings House.
  3. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
    in 1998. See Neal, Andrea (12 March 2008). "Indiana Officials Are Ready to Party: But Can They Save Lincoln Collection?". Kokomo Trubune. Kokomo, IN: A4.
  4. ^ a b c Bullard, F. Lauriston (1952). Lincoln in Marble and Bronze. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. p. 293.
  5. ^
    ISBN 0-934251-00-2
    .
  6. ISBN 0-87474-834-8
    .
  7. ^ a b c Rand, p. 97.
  8. ^ a b c d Bullard, p. 292.
  9. ^ Herndon, William H.; Jesse W. Weik (1896). Abraham Lincoln: The True Story of a Great Life. Vol. 1. New York: D. Appleton and Company. pp. 58–59.
  10. ^ a b c d Rand, p. 100.
  11. ^ Rand, p. 95–96.
  12. ^ a b Rand, p. 96.
  13. ^ Rand, p. 96–97.
  14. ^ "Sculpture: 20th Century: Nancy Hanks and Boy Abraham Lincoln (#4)". Smithsonian American Art Museum. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 15 May 2013.
  15. ^ fr:Musée bruxellois de l'industrie et du travail[circular reference]
  16. ^ Bullard, p. 291.
  17. ^ "Paul Manship". Smithsonian American Art Museum. Archived from the original on 18 September 2015. Retrieved 15 May 2013.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Abraham Lincoln: The Hoosier Youth.

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