The Haymarket Memorial

The Haymarket Memorial, 2004

Mary Brogger

175 North Des Plaines Street between Lake and Randolph Streets

            One of three monuments in the city that address the Haymarket Affair of May 4, 1886, this bronze figurative group marks the precise location where a freight wagon, being used as a platform for speakers, was standing when a bomb was thrown into the crowd. In the midst of demonstrations for an eight-hour workday and labor strikes, a crowd had gathered to listen to speeches and was ordered to disperse by approximately 175 officers. At some point a bomb was hurled at the police. Eight police officers died and an undetermined number of the crowd were killed and wounded. Subsequently, eight anarchists were tried and convicted of murder with seven sentenced to death. Four were hanged in the Cook county jail and one committee suicide. The trial is now widely considered a travesty of justice and, in 1893, Governor John Peter Altgeld pardoned the remaining defendants, based upon the lack of credible evidence. The identity of the person who threw the bomb has never been determined.

            Over the years, the site of the Haymarket bombing has become a symbol and meeting place for a variety of groups involved in social and political activism. Artist Mary Brogger, a former professor at the Art Institute of Chicago who is now based in Los Angeles, has created a depiction based upon the freight wagon, and the surrounding figures symbolize the ongoing struggles related to the often tense relationships between labor, business, law enforcement as well as the desire to maintain the right to free speech and assembly.

The Police Monument (Haymarket Riot Monument)

The Police Monument (Haymarket Riot Monument), 1889

Johannes Gelert

Chicago Police Headquarters

3510 South Michigan Avenue

            This work was commissioned in 1888 by a committee of 25 businessmen and civic leaders to serve as a memorial to the police officers who died during the events of May 4, 1886 at Haymarket Square in Chicago. It was Danish sculptor Johannes Gelert’s first major commission. 

            In the midst of the national movement for an 8-hour workday, a rally was held in Haymarket Square on May 4, 1886 to support striking workers at the nearby McCormick reaper plant. The assembly was peaceful and Mayor Carter H. Harrison advised police not to intervene. When the rhetoric heated up near the end of the rally, however, 176 officers marched in and ordered the crowd to disperse. A bomb was thrown and one officer, Mathias Degan, was killed instantly. Police responded with gunfire and seven more officers (and an undetermined number of civilians) were killed that evening with 60 officers injured.

            The melee resulted in hundreds of arrests and, eventually, eight anarchists were charged with “inciting the act;” all eight were convicted and seven were sentenced to death. Four were hanged on November 11, 1887, one died in prison and the other three were given complete pardons by Governor John Peter Altgeld in 1893, due to the lack of credible evidence from the conspiracy trial.

            Public opinion toward the police actions and the behavior of the protestors has always been divided and this memorial has had its own tumultuous history. Originally erected in Haymarket Square in 1889, it was declared a traffic hazard in 1900 and moved to Union Park. In 1927 (on the anniversary of the events) a streetcar crashed into the statue and it was subsequently moved to another section of the park. In 1958 it was returned to the Haymarket area (near the Kennedy expressway) and it was granted Landmark status in 1965. In October of 1969, however, the life-sized, bronze statue was blown off of its pedestal by dynamite, restored, and then damaged again by explosives in 1970. In 1972, it was relocated to the lobby of the old Chicago Police headquarters on State Street. In 1976, it was placed in the atrium of the Police Academy away from public view. In June 2007, after being refurbished and provided with a new pedestal by Mike Baur, the statue was installed outside of the Chicago Police Headquarters on Michigan Avenue.

            Although the artist’s initial design featured an allegorical female figure of “Law,” the committee requested a more down-to-earth representation and the statue is intended to represent Capt. William Ward, who called for the crowd to disperse. Gelert modeled his figure after a policeman he saw directing traffic. Conversely, the Haymarket Martyrs’ Monument (1893), located at the grave of five of the convicted anarchists in Forest Home (Waldheim) cemetery in Forest Park and designed by Albert Weinert, does include an allegorical female form, understood as either “Justice,” “Anarchy” or “Revolution.”

Hans Christian Andersen

Hans Christian Andersen, 1896

Johannes Gelert

Lincoln Park

East of North Stockton Drive and south of West Dickens Avenue

            Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875) was a Danish author best known for his 168 children’s tales, including “The Little Mermaid,” “The Princess and the Pea,” “Thumbelina” and “The Snow Queen.” The son of a poor shoemaker from Odense, Andersen hoped to become a successful playwright in Copenhagen but was not taken seriously. He began writing travelogues after a visit to Germany in 1831 and would continue producing them for the rest of his life. On a lark, he published four children’s stories in 1835, which led to the career that would bring him international fame.

            Johannes Gelert, the Danish sculptor responsible for the Haymarket Riot Monument, was commissioned by a committee of the Chicago Dania Society to create this 8-foot-tall bronze statue of Andersen, seated on a tree stump atop a granite pedestal. Andersen is shown with his fingers holding his place in a book with a swan beside him, possibly alluding to his story “The Swan’s Nest,” which refers to Denmark, or “The Ugly Duckling,” given his own struggle to gain acceptance as a writer. The monument was paid for by donations, including small change given by school children.

            In 1897, Gelert installed another work in Lincoln Park, a bust of German composer Ludwig van Beethoven, but it was stolen in 1970 and never recovered. In honor of the 200^th anniversary of Andersen’s birth, the Chicago Park District conserved the monument and it features a vivid green patina.  

Nuclear Energy

Nuclear Energy, 1967

Henry Moore

University of Chicago campus

Ellis Avenue between 56^th and 57^th Streets

            This 12-foot high bronze sculpture by renowned British sculptor Henry Moore (1989-1986) stands on the site where a team of scientists, led by Enrico Fermi, initiated humankind’s first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction in an experimental reactor known as the “Chicago Pile” at 3:25pm on December 2, 1942. Moore’s form, which invites comparison to a mushroom cloud, a human skull, or protective helmet, allows viewers to contemplate the complex implications of the discovery. While many saw great potential in atomic energy, the project was inextricably linked to efforts to create an atomic bomb.

            Purchased from the artist by the B. F. Ferguson Fund, the sculpture was dedicated on December 2, 1967 on the 25^th anniversary of the event and was attended by Mrs. Laura Fermi, widow of Enrico Fermi. The work was based upon a 3-inch study in Moore’s studio viewed by a committee from the University of Chicago. Moore subsequently visited the site on the university’s campus before developing the full-sized sculpture. The setting was designed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. 

Other works: 

• Large Interior Form 
• Man Enters the Cosmos (Sundial)