America’s Heroes: Marble and Bronze

Each year, 1.5 million visitors view the bronze and marble statues that stand throughout the Capitol waiting to be recognized.

Some are well-known. Many are not.

Since 1864, each state has been entitled to donate statues of two of its most distinguished deceased citizens for permanent exhibit in the Capitol.

Once a state legislature decides who is to be honored, a statue is created and accepted by Congress for a place in the National Statuary Hall--America’s hall of fame.

“People are always anxious to see the statues from their state. But often they’re surprised and disappointed because they have no idea who (the people) depicted in the statues are,” said Barbara Wolanin, 46, curator of Statuary Hall since 1978.

California’s statues, both dedicated on March 1, 1930, are of a minister and a priest. It is the only state with two statues of clergy.

Most visitors recognize Father Junipero Serra, the Franciscan priest who established nine California missions before he died in 1784. Father Serra’s bronze likeness holds a little mission in his left hand, and in the right, a cross, held high above his head.

Thomas Starr King is not so familiar. “What did he do?” Californians typically ask when they see the statue.

King, a Unitarian minister, came to California in 1860 from Boston to serve as pastor of the First Unitarian Church of San Francisco. It was during the Civil War and many Californians favored the Confederacy. Of the more than 100 newspapers in the state, only 24 supported Abraham Lincoln.

“King traveled throughout California championing the Union cause. He is remembered as the man whose matchless oratory kept California in the union,” curator Wolanin said.

King lived in California only four years before dying at age 40 in 1864.

Of the 95 statues from 50 states, 14 are of religious leaders, including Father Damien (Hawaii), who devoted his life to lepers on Molokai; Father Kino (Ariz.), a Jesuit missionary, and Brigham Young (Utah), the Mormon Church leader.

Five states--Nevada, North Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico--have contributed only one statue each.

On May 2, Utah became the latest state to present its second statue, a 7-foot-7 bronze likeness of lanky Philo T. Farnsworth (1906-1971), known as the “Father of Television.” The statue shows Farnsworth holding one of his first cathode-ray tubes. He transmitted his first electronic TV picture in 1927.

Students at Ridgecrest Elementary School in Butler, Utah, under the guidance of Principal Bruce Barnson, led the effort to put the Farnsworth statue in the Capitol.

In a statewide poll conducted by students, residents favored Farnsworth over 20 other Utahans, including Eliza Snow, a poet and wife of Brigham Young; Mormon Church leader Ezra Taft Benson; hotelier J. Willard Marriott, and heavyweight boxing champion Jack Dempsey.

Among those present for Utah Gov. Norman Bangerter’s unveiling of the statue was the inventor’s 81-year-old widow, Elma (Pem) Farnsworth.

Three statues are of Presidents: George Washington (Va.), Andrew Jackson (Tenn.) and James A. Garfield (Ohio). Four are of vice presidents, 36 of U.S. senators, 23 of House members, 30 of governors and 32 of military heroes. (Some held more than one of these titles.) Six statues honor women: Dr. Florence Sabin (Colo.), author of the “Sabin Health Laws” that modernized Colorado’s public health system; Frances Willard (Ill.), founder of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union; Marie Sanford (Minn.), educator and champion of women’s rights; Jeannette Rankin (Mont.), the nation’s first congresswoman; Mother Joseph (Wash.), a Catholic nun who contributed to the fields of health care, education and social work, and Esther Hobart Morris (Wyo.), the first woman to hold judicial office in the nation.

There are statues of four signers of the Declaration of Independence, and of six physicians. A king is here--Kamehameha (Hawaii), and a famed cowboy artist-- Charley Russell (Mont.). Oklahoma honors two American Indians: Sequoya, inventor of the Cherokee alphabet, and Will Rogers, humorist, newspaper columnist and movie star.

In keeping with Rogers’ famous advice to “Always keep an eye on Congress to see what they’re up to,” his statue is the only one facing the House chamber.

The feet of many of the statues gleam from constant rubbing, “for good luck,” by visitors. Will Rogers has the shiniest feet of all.

There are statues of the president and vice president of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis (Miss.) and Alexander Hamilton Stephens (Ga.), respectively, as well as of “Father of Refrigeration” John Gorrie (Fla.), and steamboat inventor Robert Fulton (Pa.).

America’s best-known historic figures are here as well: Henry Clay (Ky.), Huey Long (La.), William Jennings Bryan (Neb.), Daniel Webster (N.H.), Robert E. Lee (Va.), Samuel Adams (Mass.), Roger Williams (R.I.), John C. Calhoun (S.C.), Sam Houston and Stephen Austin (Tex.), and Ethan Allen (Vt.).

Some of the lesser known include Jabez Curry (Ala.), Uriah Rose (Ark.), Edmund K. Smith (Fla.), George Shoup (Ida.), Samuel Kirkwood (Iowa), George Glick (Kan.), Zachariah Chandler (Mich.), Zebulon Vance (N.C.) and Jason Lee (Ore.). Most visitors to Statuary Hall have no idea who they were, the curator said.

“Other people pass away who are much more famous than many in Statuary Hall, but the states are stuck with those selected at an earlier time,” longtime Capitol guide Madeline Allen said.

Statuary Hall is in a part of the Capitol completed in 1807, a domed semicircular room with sandstone walls and breccia marble columns, a room that housed the House of Representatives until 1857, when the House moved to its present, larger chamber.

Congress passed a bill in 1864 to create the National Statuary Hall to house two marble or bronze statues from each state “of deceased persons illustrious for their historic renown or for distinguished civic or military services.”

In 1870, Rhode Island contributed the first statue, Revolutionary War hero Nathaniel Greene. By the turn of the century, 23 were on exhibit.

By 1933, there were 65 statues crowded into Statuary Hall, and it became clear that the floor would not support any more.

It was then decided to keep most of the collection in the hall and place the others in prominent sites throughout the Capitol.

Although the statues no longer stand in the same room, this gathering of heroes--famous or not--continues to be called National Statuary Hall.