Illinois Centennial Monument, 1918
Henry Bacon and Evelyn
Beatrice Longman
Logan Square
Intersection of Logan
Boulevard and Milwaukee Avenue at North Kedzie
This 68-foot tall monument commemorates the 100th
anniversary of the entry of the State of Illinois into the Union and was
commissioned by the B. F. Ferguson Monument Fund. It was designed by architect
Henry Bacon (1866-1924), best known for his work with Daniel Chester French on
the Lincoln Memorial in Washington,
D.C. The Doric-style fluted column, made of Tennessee pink marble, is topped by
a large eagle with spread wings and rests upon a base carved with seven-foot
high bas-reliefs.
Sculptor Evelyn Beatrice Longman (1874-1954) created the
eagle perched upon a boulder and the relief figures on the drum of the column.
One of the sculptural friezes features personifications of agriculture, labor,
transportation, science, education and the fine arts, while the other includes
an Indian family, the explorers Marquette and LaSalle, and William Clark, surveyor
general of Illinois 1824-25. Between these historical and allegorical figures
there is a seated female personification of “Illinois,” holding a scroll of law
and a distaff, representing industry. Longman, who studied with Lorado Taft,
became the only woman to work as an assistant in the studio of Daniel Chester
French and was later the first woman sculptor to be elected a full member of
the National Academy of Design.
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