While overlooked today, this was a very popular sculpture in the late 19th century and was often photographed. Many of those photographs exist today. The LIbrary Company of Philadelphia has an impressive collection of vintage, 19th century photographs of East River Drive, the Art Museum and the Water Works. I found my picture HERE. This picture is dated 1875. I took mine on August 10, 2013 so we have about 138 years between snapshots. When I matched my photo, I stood approximately 30 feet away and faced Lincoln at an angle, pointing my camera facing almost all the way west but with a little south thrown in for good measure revealing the front and proper left side of the monument.
The historic picture shows the Lincoln Monument at the entrance (Kelly and Lemon Hill Drives) of Fairmount Park surrounded by male and female spectators. A horse-drawn coach is visible under the shade of trees in the right background. The creator of the 1875 picture was J. W. and J. S. Moulton and was published out of Salem, Mass. by the same J. W. & J. S. Moulton, of 206 Essex Street. The photo is either a Stereograph print or an Albumen print or both, I don't know. I can still see Lemon Hill in the background of my picture with its mature trees but there is now traffic lights and all manner of road, totally corrupting the scenic landscape that once was in 1875.
The Abraham Monument was sculpted in 1871 by Randolph Rogers (1825 - 1892). A month after Lincoln's May 1865 assassination, a committee of prominent Philadelphia citizens formed the Lincoln Monument Association. The sculptor Randolph Rogers was selected to crate this monumental bronze, one of the first to commemorate Lincoln.
The sculptor wrote that he depicted Lincoln in a seated position, "holding on one hand the Emancipation Proclamation, and a pen in the other, his eyes are turned towards heaven, asking the Almighty his approval for the act. That was the great even of his life." Fifty thousand people witnessed the unveiling in September 1871, including several Civil War generals.
The monument was fabricated by Struthers & Company and finished at Royal Foundry. The sculpture is approximately 9 feet 6 inches x 48 inches x 96 inches. The base is approximately 22 feet 6 inches. The base is of granite and the statue is of bronze. The monument was dedicated on September 22, 1871. SIRIS describes the statue as A seated portrait of Abraham Lincoln holding a quill pen in his raised proper right hand. A copy of the Emancipation Proclamation is across his proper left leg. The sculpture rests on a square base adorned on each corner with a bronze eagle. On each side of the base is a bronze relief plaque. On the east side is laurel wreath and sword; on the north side are liberty and justice medallions; on the west side are two cross swords; and on the south side is the great seal of the United States. There are inscription on all four sides which read:
front
To Abraham Lincoln from a grateful people
left
With malice towards none, with charity towards all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us finish the work we are in
back
Let us here highly resolve that the government of the people. by the people, and for the people shall not perish from this earth
right
I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within the states in rebellion are and hence forth shall be free
The statue was moved in January 2002 from the middle of Kelly Drive to the North side. The monument is part of a string of sculptures found on East River Drive now known as Kelly Drive. Kelly Drive, or more formally, John B. Kelly Drive, is a road that winds for 4 miles (6.4 km) along the Schuylkill River from Eakins Oval before the Philadelphia Museum of Art to the neighborhood of East Falls, Philadelphia, just south of Wissahickon Creek, where it connects with Lincoln Drive. SOURCE
The sculpture is located at the intersection of Kelly & Sedgely Drives, on the right or north side of the road if traveling west on Kelly. I visited the monument on Saturday, August 10, 2013 @ 11:19 PM EDT. As always, I used my trusty and oft abused Canon PowerShot 14.1 Megapixel, SX210 IS digital camera for the photos.
About the Sculptor
Randolph was an American Neoclassical sculptor. An expatriate who lived most of his life in Italy, his works ranged from popular subjects to major commissions, including the Columbus Doors at the U.S. Capitol and American Civil War monuments.
In 1873 he became the first American to be elected to Italy's Accademia di San Luca, and he was knighted in 1884 by King Umberto I. Rogers suffered a stroke in 1882, and was never able to work again. He left his papers and plaster casts of his sculptures to the University of Michigan. SOURCE
About the Subject
Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. Lincoln led the United States through its greatest constitutional, military, and moral crisis—the American Civil War—preserving the Union, abolishing slavery, strengthening the national government and modernizing the economy. Reared in a poor family on the western frontier, Lincoln was self-educated, and became a country lawyer, a Whig Party leader, Illinois state legislator during the 1830s, and a one-term member of the United States House of Representatives during the 1840s. SOURCE
Lincoln is credited with freeing the slave by virtue of his Emancipation Proclamation. Little known is he was not originally in favor of abolishing slavery, he just did not want it to spread to the west or in acquired territory from Mexico. In his debate with Douglas he conceded it would be all one thing or all the other but not both and never actually said slavery needed to go. Not until the decisive victory at Gettysburg on July 1-3, 1863 did Lincoln get the gumption to finally announce slavery had to go.