The Alexander von Humboldt statue is a

monumental statue A monument is a type of structure that was explicitly created to commemorate a person or event, or which has become relevant to a social group as a part of their remembrance of historic times or cultural heritage, due to its artistic, hist ...

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. Located in Humboldt Park, a major

urban park An urban park or metropolitan park, also known as a municipal park (North America) or a public park, public open space, or municipal gardens ( UK), is a park in cities and other incorporated places that offer recreation and green space to resi ...

in the Humboldt Park neighborhood, the statue depicts

Alexander von Humboldt Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt (14 September 17696 May 1859) was a German polymath, geographer, naturalist, explorer, and proponent of Romantic philosophy and science. He was the younger brother of the Prussian minister, p ...

, a

Prussian Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an e ...

polymath A polymath ( el, πολυμαθής, , "having learned much"; la, homo universalis, "universal human") is an individual whose knowledge spans a substantial number of subjects, known to draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific pro ...

and the park's namesake. The statue was dedicated in 1892.

History

The park and surrounding neighborhood were named in honor of

, a

who, among other things, made numerous scientific voyages throughout

the Americas The Americas, which are sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North America, North and South America. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World. ...

during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Despite never having visited

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

during any of his journeys, he became the park's namesake in 1869. According to Chicago's

NPR National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...

affiliate, the name was chosen due to " ethnic politics", as

German Americans German Americans (german: Deutschamerikaner, ) are Americans who have full or partial German ancestry. With an estimated size of approximately 43 million in 2019, German Americans are the largest of the self-reported ancestry groups by the Unite ...

made up a significant portion of the neighborhood's population and were considered a growing

voting bloc A voting bloc is a group of voters that are strongly motivated by a specific common concern or group of concerns to the point that such specific concerns tend to dominate their voting patterns, causing them to vote together in elections. For example ...

in the

politics of Chicago Politics in Chicago through most of the 20th century was dominated by the Democratic Party. Organized crime and political corruption were persistent concerns in the city. Democrats have usually dominated city politics. The city was the political ...

. The monument was paid for by Francis Dewes, a German-born

brewer Brewing is the production of beer by steeping a starch source (commonly cereal grains, the most popular of which is barley) in water and fermenting the resulting sweet liquid with yeast. It may be done in a brewery by a commercial brewer, ...

who is also known for the Francis J. Dewes House in Chicago. The statue was dedicated on October 16, 1892. The unveiling ceremony, which saw speeches given in English, German, and Swedish, attracted approximately 20,000 spectators. The

bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals, such as phosphorus, or metalloids such ...

figure of Humboldt was sculpted by a German sculptor named Felix Görling and was cast in the Gladenbeck foundry in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

. The

pedestal A pedestal (from French ''piédestal'', Italian ''piedistallo'' 'foot of a stall') or plinth is a support at the bottom of a statue, vase, column, or certain altars. Smaller pedestals, especially if round in shape, may be called socles. In ci ...

was designed and made by H.C. Hoffman & Co., a Chicago-based company, using

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...

from

Freeport, Maine Freeport is a town in Cumberland County, Maine, United States. The population was 8,737 at the 2020 census. Once home to a prominent shipbuilding industry, timber operations, and farming, it is now known for its numerous outlet stores; Freeport ...

. Notable speakers at the unveiling included

Chicago Mayor The mayor of Chicago is the chief executive of city government in Chicago, Illinois, the third-largest city in the United States. The mayor is responsible for the administration and management of various city departments, submits proposals and r ...

Hempstead Washburne Hempstead Washburne (November 11, 1851April 13, 1918) was a Republican attorney and politician from Illinois who served as Mayor of Chicago from 1891 to 1893. He was the son of United States Secretary of State Elihu B. Washburne. Biography H ...

and

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

professor

Albion Woodbury Small Albion Woodbury Small (May 11, 1854 – March 24, 1926) founded the first independent Department of Sociology in the United States at the University of Chicago in Chicago, Illinois in 1892. He was influential in the establishment of sociology as ...

. The statue is one of several of Humboldt erected in the United States during the 1800s, alongside statues in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

St. Louis St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...

, and the

Cleveland Cultural Gardens The Cleveland Cultural Gardens are a collection of public gardens located in Rockefeller Park in Cleveland, Ohio. The gardens are situated along East Boulevard & Martin Luther King Jr. Drive within the 276 acre of wooded parkland on the city's E ...

Design

The monument features a bronze

sculpture Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

of Humboldt atop a granite pedestal, with the entire height of the monument being approximately . Humboldt is posed as a

lecturer Lecturer is an List of academic ranks, academic rank within many universities, though the meaning of the term varies somewhat from country to country. It generally denotes an academic expert who is hired to teach on a full- or part-time basis. T ...

, with a flower in his raised right hand and a book in his left hand, which is resting on a tree stump. A

globe A globe is a spherical model of Earth, of some other celestial body, or of the celestial sphere. Globes serve purposes similar to maps, but unlike maps, they do not distort the surface that they portray except to scale it down. A model globe ...

and other smaller symbols of some of the scientific fields Humboldt was involved in are present near his feet.

References

Bibliography

* * Andreas W. Daum, "Nation, Naturforschung und Monument: Humboldt-Denkmäler in Deutschland und den USA" umboldt monuments in Germany and the US ''Die Kunst der Geschichte: Historiographie, Ästhetik, Erzählung'', ed. Martin Baumeister et al. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2009, 99‒124. * * *

External links

* {{coord, 41.90548, -87.70147, format=dms, type:landmark_region:US-IL, display=title 1892 establishments in Illinois 1892 sculptures Alexander von Humboldt Bronze sculptures in Illinois Monuments and memorials in Chicago Outdoor sculptures in Chicago Sculptures of men in Illinois Statues in Chicago

History

Design

See also

References

Bibliography

External links