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Statue of the Republic

Hyde Park Township, United States of America

Statue of the Republic

The Statue of The Republic is a 24-foot-high (7.3 m) gilded bronze sculpture in Jackson Park, Chicago, Illinois by Daniel Chester French. It is based on a colossal original statue, which was a centerpiece of the Chicago World's Fair in 1893. That statue was made of temporary materials and was destro

yed after the fair. The smaller-scale replica sculpted by the same artist was erected in 1918 in commemoration of both the 25th anniversary of the Exposition and the Illinois' statehood centennial. The replacement statue is at the south end of the park at the intersection of East Hayes and South Richards Drive, adjacent to the golf course and approximately where the exposition's Administration Building and Electricity Building once stood. The statue was funded by the Benjamin Ferguson Fund, which commissioned French to cast this recreation of the original 65-foot-tall (20 m) statue that stood on the grounds of the Exposition of 1893. Minnie Clark, an original Gibson Girl, and Edith Minturn Stokes served as French's models for the original statue. Henry Bacon, the architect of the Lincoln Memorial, designed the festooned pedestal for the replica. The statue's right hand holds a globe,...

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