William McKinley Monument, 1905
Charles J. Mulligan
McKinley Park
South of the intersection
of Western Boulevard, Archer Avenue and 37th Street
As this portrait was to be located in a historically
working-class neighborhood, sculptor Charles J. Mulligan wanted to remind
viewers of William McKinley’s sponsorship of the Tariff Act of 1890. Designed
to protect domestic manufacturers from foreign competition, the bill was passed
while McKinley was serving as U.S. Representative from Ohio. It helped establish
McKinley as a leader of the Republican party and he was elected 25th
President of the United States in 1896. In this work, McKinley is depicted with
one hand on a desk and the other holding the notes for the speech promoting his
tariff bill.
On September 6, 1901, during a visit to the Pan American
Exposition in Buffalo, New York, President McKinley was shot by Leon Czolgosz,
an anarchist from Michigan who may have been imitating Gaetano Bresci, the
assassin responsible for the death of Umberto I of Italy in 1900. Not long
after McKinley’s death resulting from complications from the gunshot wounds on
September 14th, Daniel F. Crilly, president of the South Park
Commission in Chicago, organized a committee that included department store
magnate Marshall Field and banker Charles Dawes in order to raise funds for a
McKinley monument. As part of this effort, commissioners agreed to melt down a
bronze statue of Christopher Columbus created by Howard Kretschmar for the 1893
World’s Columbian Exposition. The statue was so disliked by the public and by
Chicago Tribune critics that it was placed in storage by 1897 and the artist
abandoned his career as an artist.
Other works:
Other works:
- Home (The Miner and His Child)
- Lincoln, the Railsplitter
- Independence Square Fountain (Fourth of July Fountain)
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