Carter Harrison Memorial, 1907
Frederick Cleveland
Hibbard
Union Park
East of North Ashland
Avenue and south of West Washington Boulevard
This eight-foot tall bronze sculpture honors Carter H.
Harrison, Sr. (1825-1893), a Chicago politician who served two terms in the
United States House of Representatives and was elected to five terms as Mayor
of Chicago. His first four terms, from 1879 to 1887, were witness to years of
labor unrest, including strikes demanding the eight-hour workday. Harrison,
known as the “people’s mayor,” was more sympathetic to labor issues than many
others in the Chicago establishment and he was known to restrain police from
intervening during strikes called by well-connected unions. After the Haymarket
Affair in May of 1886, however, Harrison called a halt to meetings and
processions associated with the labor movement.
Harrison is depicted wearing his typical attire,
including a bow tie, vest and overcoat, and he holds his felt slouch hat in his
left hand. The mayor was fond of riding through the streets on a white horse
and declared that his door was “always open.” He was elected to his fifth term
as mayor in 1893 and he hosted the World’s Columbian Exposition. On October 28th,
after his last full day at the Exposition, Harrison returned to his South
Ashland Avenue home, not far from Union Park, and he was confronted by a
deranged and unemployed Irish immigrant named Patrick Eugene Prendergast, who
was indignant at not having been appointed as the city’s chief attorney.
Prendergast shot Harrison three times at point blank range with a .38 caliber
revolver and the wounds were fatal.
This statue was the first major commission for sculptor
Frederick Cleveland Hibbard (1881-1950), a native of Missouri who studied with
Lorado Taft at the Art Institute. The bronze was cast in Chicago at the
American Bronze Foundry and the memorial originally included a bronze plaque on
the granite pedestal with an excerpt from the speech he delivered on the day of
his assassination, and two ornamental lights on either side. The plaque and
lights have been missing for many years.
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