The Monuments

Out of a collection of over 500 monumental sculptures and commemorative plaques and artworks on the public way and in Chicago parks, several have been identified for a public discussion because of the following issues:

  • Promoting narratives of white supremacy 

  • Presenting inaccurate and/or demeaning characterizations of American Indians 

  • Memorializing individuals with connections to racist acts, slavery, and genocide 

  • Presenting selective, over-simplified, one-sided views of history 

  • Not sufficiently including other stories, in particular those of women, people of color, and themes of labor, migration, and community building 

  • Creating tension between people who see value in these artworks and those who do not

The committee understands that these artworks are not a comprehensive inventory of all of the monuments and other public symbols that need attention, but is the start to a long overdue and necessary conversation.

No decisions have been made about the following monuments.

We invite you to review the artworks that have been identified, suggest others, and to share your opinions on the role of monuments in Chicago’s public spaces. 

The Alarm

The Alarm is a large scale bronze sculpture atop a tall, limestone pedestal that shows an American Indian family group, including a standing father and a seated mother and child, along with a protective dog. The father, peers off in the distance with an expression of watchful concern.

Robert Cavelier de La Salle

Armed with a pistol and sword and dressed in a rugged frock coat and knee-high, laced boots, the pose of explorer De La Salle is notably swashbuckling. He stands on a pedestal with his right foot perched on a tree stump and his left hand on his engaged, left hip.

Fort Dearborn Massacre

The Fort Dearborn Massacre presents a scene of remarkable violence and physical dynamism, in which the central figure of Margaret Helm, wife of the Fort’s commander, is shown caught between two partially clothed American Indian figures – one attacking her with a raised tomahawk, the other defending her against the attacker. As she falls, caught between them, she attempts to steal the attacker’s dagger from the sheath strapped to his hip. A wounded American soldier is shown on the ground between their legs and an infant, his arms reaching out for aid, tries to escape the carnage.

Bull and Indian Maiden

The Bull and Indian Maiden shows a female figure standing along the side of the large animal. Resting her right flank confidently on the bull’s midsection, she holds a stalk of corn over the animal’s haunch and neck. Under her crooked left arm is a bundle of ears of corn. A fine, animal skin sheaths her body and a cloth wrap covers the top of her head, allowing a braid of hair to fall over her bare shoulder.

A Signal of Peace

A Signal of Peace is a simple figural grouping of an Indian chief mounted on a stationary horse. The Indian wears an elaborate and long feathered headdress and holds a staff with his upraised right hand. Both rider and horse look ahead resolutely.

Illinois Centennial Monument

The Illinois Centennial monument is a fifty-foot high fluted column upon which stands an eagle with its wings somewhat spread, as if landing, or about to take off. At the base of the column is a six-foot high drum that shows pioneers, explorers, American Indians, laborers, and farmers carved in low relief. The sculptural ensemble rests on a broad, stepped plinth.

The Republic

The Republic is a classically draped female figure completely covered in brilliantly reflective gold leaf. The figure’s upraised right hand holds an orb or globe on which rests an American Eagle; her left grasps and a staff with a laurel wreath.

Tablet dedicated to Jolliet and Marquette

These oblong, shallowly carved tablets, mounted to the inner parapet walls of DuSable Bridge show in figures of French explorers and their American Indian guides rowing and disembarking from their canoes. In both tablets, the figures move as if in concert, in front of an ideal space with no indication of place, but rather against a blank background.

Tablet dedicated to Cavelier de La Salle

Monument photo coming soon

Jacques Marquette-Louis Jolliet Memorial

At the head of this large, multi-figure group French explorer and missionary Pere Marquette strides forward holding a Christian cross and looking straight ahead as if envisioning the historical consequences of his actions. To his left and slightly behind is cartographer, Louis Jolliet, holding several scrolled maps, also looking ahead. On Marquette’s right is the stooped figure of an American Indian, looking up at Marquette as if subservient or unenlightened.

Indians (The Bowman and the Spearman)

Ivan Mestrovic’s mounted Bowman and Spearman face each other from plinths on either side of Ida B. Wells Drive, just east of Michigan Avenue. The two Indian horsemen are unclothed and are symmetrically and artificially pose – as if frozen – to launch strangely invisible weapons. The musculature of both horse and rider is meticulously delineated and emphasized and the proportions of each also somewhat artificial and stylized.

The Defense

The four monumental relief sculptures on the Michigan Avenue-facing sides of each of the four Bridgehouses at DuSable Bridge, show episodes representing the founding and struggle to establish and rebuild Chicago. Carved in high relief, the four scenes are highly idealized and lofty visual rhetoric; each includes a female personification of winged victory or glory that floats above multi-figured illustrations of conflict, unity or struggle to overcome adversity.

The Pioneers

Monument photo coming soon

Discoverers

Monument photo coming soon

Regeneration

Monument photo coming soon

Damen Avenue Bridge Marquette Monument

Framed by a stylized, art deco influenced pylon that was once integrated into the former bridge’s architecture, a low relief bronze shows the ethereal figure of Pere Marquette, his hand outstretched to greet an American Indian warrior in a wooded, riverside setting. Marquette is wearing clerical robes, while the Indian, who salutes Marquette, is minimally covered to reveal his strong musculature.

Christopher Columbus Monument

This large-scaled representation of Columbus shows the explorer dressed in armor and robes. Left hand on his breastplate, he strides forward and looks out over his shoulder. His hair and facial features are highly individualized: lantern jaw, full, curvy lips, straight nose, deep set eyes and boyishly curled ringlets of hair, he seems -- like a comic book hero or matinee idol -- almost too handsome to be real.

Drake Fountain

This figure of Columbus, dressed in simple robes and leggings -- also quite dashing, thoughtfully regards a small globe that is held in his left hand. The bronze figure of Columbus is integrated into a large and elaborate neo-gothic stone structure that once was a functioning fountain.

Columbus Monument

The largest of the Columbus monuments, this work sits atop a very high, elaborately carved stone pedestal set atop a broad plinth. The figure of Columbus is attired in elaborate robes, more suitable for a royal court. He raises his left arm high with open hand and holds a scroll in his right hand. Bearded and with a receding hairline, he looks older, but still vital and rugged.

Standing Lincoln

In this celebrated bronze memorial, the figure of President Lincoln stands in a deeply reflective pose before a classically styled chair, from which he appears to have just risen. With his left hand on the lapel of his meticulously rendered period clothing, Lincoln looks slightly downward and steps forward, his left foot just breaking the edge of the plinth on which he stands.

General John Logan Monument

Perched atop a steep rise of earth in Grant Park near 9th Street, the Memorial to John A Logan dominates the landscape. Logan is posed with a captured Confederate battle flag in his upraised right arm. He sits atop a marvelously acrobatic horse, with left front foot dramatically raised and head lowered and cocked left, to give the impression almost of a corkscrew motion starting at the rear and rising in a powerful diagonal that is echoed by the flag held aloft.

Ulysses S. Grant Monument

The Grant monument towers over the south pond of Lincoln Park by virtue of the two story architectural base made of massive, rusticated limestone blocks. Atop this impressive base is the huge, but placid horse upon which Grant’s figure sits. Since the figure of Grant is seen primarily from below, one has to move well away from it to fully take in its contours.

General Philip Henry Sheridan

Of all of the monuments to generals that are mounted on horses, the one dedicated to General Philip Henry Sheridan may be the most dynamic. Sheridan is shown balanced actively on a rearing horse. As the horse moves forward, the Sheridan twists his body to look behind the horse and down, creating a thrilling contrast between horse and rider.

Seated Lincoln

In contrast to the earlier, Standing Lincoln, this second monument by Augustus Saint-Gaudens shows Lincoln seated in the chair of state, looking even more remote, dwelling on the concerns of his office and elevated on a much higher and less approachable plinth. Both artworks, however, were framed by a large semi-circular stone bench that formed the limits of a broad platform

Lincoln

This version of Abraham Lincoln shows the figure standing on a tall, simple pedestal at the corner of Western and Lincoln Avenues near Lincoln Square. Shown on the eve of his presidency, he stands about to speak, next to a draped lectern, and wears his typical long coat, vest and foulard bow tie.

Lincoln Rail Splitter

Lincoln, Rail Splitter show the Lincoln as a young man in humble work clothes. Looking resolutely holding an axe at his side in his right hand, his left hand resting on his right leg, which is bent from standing on slightly raised terrain.

Young Lincoln

This monumental bronze shows Lincoln as a young man, perhaps in his late teens. He is seated on a tree stump, barefoot, looking up from the book he holds in his hands resting on his lap.

Benjamin Franklin

Standing with his left hand on his engaged hip, the other falling casually to his right side, Franklin appears at the summit of a slender, stepped pedestal, high above our heads.

George Washington

Mounted rigidly atop a powerful horse striding forward, George Washington is shown attired in full military dress, with tricorn hat held in the crook of his left arm and sword raised high above his head in his right hand. The horse and rider, raised high above our heads on a large pedestal, face south in the direction of Washington Park from an island on Dr. Martin Luther King Boulevard.

Robert Morris-George Washington-Haym Salomon Monument

Dressed in impressively detailed and complete 18th-century attire, the three figures of Morris, Washington and Salomon stand atop a large pedestal on Wacker Drive near the Wabash Avenue Bridge. Washington faces forward and towers over Morris and Solomon, who turn to grasp the general’s right and left hands in friendship and support.

Haymarket Riot Monument / Police Memorial

Striding forward slightly atop a high pedestal, a mustachioed figure of a policeman in late 19th-century uniform, complete with badge, helmet and baton, raises his right arm to signal his authority.

Leif Ericson

Standing atop a large granite boulder, the bearded figure of Viking Leif Ericson is dressed in period attire, including a helmet and shield that he holds in his left hand.

Bust of Melville Fuller

The 19th century lawyer and jurist is represented by a bust – or sculpture that shows the subject’s head and shoulders. Fuller’s strong facial features are broadly, but sensitively modeled.

Italo Balbo Monument

The monument to Italian air marshal Italo Balbo consists of a base with an inscription to the subject on top of which stands a slender, tapering column with an ionic capital, decorated with carved acanthus leaves.

Kinzie Mansion Plaque

This plaque is inscribed as follows: "Kinzie Mansion. Near this site stood Kinzie Mansion, 1784-1832, Home of Pointe Du Saible, Le Mai, and John Kinzie. Chicago's "First Civilian" here was born, in 1805, the city's first white child, Ellen Marion Kinzie.- Erected by Chicago's Charter Jubilee - Authenticated by Chicago Historical Society - 1937."

Indian Boundary Lines Plaque

Inscribed: "Indian Boundary Lines - Clark Street honors George Rogers Clark, whose brother William Clark, with Ninian Edwards and Auguste Chouteau, in 1816 negotiated Indian treaty ceding land including Chicago site from Rogers Avenue to Lake Calumet. - Erected by Chicago's Charter Jubilee - Authenticated by Chicago Historical Society - 1937."

Marquette Campsite Plaque

Inscribed: "On December 4, 1674 Père Jacques Marquette, S.J. and two voyageurs built a shelter near the mouth of the Chicago River. They were the first Europeans to camp here, the site of Chicago. – Erected by Illinois Society Daughters of Colonial Wars – In our 50th year 1980."

Jean Baptiste Beaubien Plaque

The plaque is inscribed: "Jean Baptiste Beaubien - On this site, then the lake shore, Jean Baptiste Beaubien, Chicago's second civilian, in 1817, built a mansion to which he brought his bride, Josette LaFramboise. It remained their home until 1845. - Erected by Chicago's Charter Jubilee - Authenticated by Chicago Historical Society - 1937."

Chicago River Plaque

Inscribed: "Chicago River - This river, originally flowing eastward from the prairie homelands of the Potawatomi and other Indian tribes, into Lake Michigan, linked the waters of the Atlantic, the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes with those of the Illinois, the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico. From 1673, commerce and civilization followed this natural waterway from the seaboard to the heart of the continent. The strategic importance to early American development of the junction of the Chicago River and Lake Michigan led to the establishment here of Fort Dearborn and to the founding of the city of Chicago. - Erected in 1953 to the memory of those pioneers who plied the water route. - Society of Colonial Wars in the State of Illinois."

Wilderness, Winter Scene

Babcock’s painting shows Pere Marquette and Louis Joliet standing with their men before a wooden structure and Indians near their teepees. An Indian and a trapper arrive in a canoe with freshly caught game. The snowy scene is painted in closely related hues of white, buff and brown, related to a style known as “tonalism.”

William McKinley Monument

The Mckinley Monument presents an image of the president with his left hand supported on a draped pedestal that stands slightly behind his body, and his right holding a sheaf of papers or folio. Dressed in formal, late 19th-century attire, he looks into the distance in the direction of his right shoulder.