Across the country, in the middle of busy city squares and hidden
on quiet streets, there are nearly 200 statues erected in memory of
Abraham Lincoln. No other American has ever been so widely
commemorated.A few years ago, anticipating the bicentennial of
Lincolnas birth in 2009, Jim Percoco, a history teacher with a
passion for both Lincoln and public sculpture, set off to see what
he might learn about some of these monumentsawhat they meant when
they were unveiled, and what they mean to us today. The result is
this captivating book, a fascinating chronicle of four summers on
the road looking for Lincoln stories in statues of marble and
bronze. Of all the monuments, Percoco selects seven emblematic
ones. He begins and ends the journey in Washington, starting with
Thomas Ballas Emancipation Group, erected east of the Capitol in
1876 with private funds from African Americans, and dedicated by
Frederick Douglass. Here, Percoco and his multi-ethnic band of
teenage historians explore the impact of this Freedmanas Monument
showing Lincoln and a kneeling freed bondsperson. What does the
statute say about race and freedom to todayas Americans? What did
Ballaand his sponsorsawant it to say? From Augustus Saint-Gaudensas
majestic Standing Lincoln of 1887 in Chicago, which helped move our
image of Lincoln from great emancipator to that of statesman to
Paul Manshipas 1932 Lincoln the Hoosier Youth, in Fort Wayne,
Indiana, which glows with an art deco sleekness, Percoco mines a
wealth of Lincoln legaciesaand our reactions to them expressed
across generations. Here are controversial gems like Barnardas 1917
tribute in Cincinnati and Borglumas Seated Lincoln, struggling with
the pain of leadership, beckoning visitors to sit next to him on
his metal bench in Newark, New Jersey. At each stop, Percoco
chronicles the history of each monument, spotlighting its artistic,
social, political, and cultural origins. His descriptions of works
so often seen as clichA(c)s tease fresh meaning from mute stone and
cold metalaraising provocative questions not just about who Lincoln
might have been, but also about what weave wanted him to be in the
monuments weave built.
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