Randolph Rogers

From Lincoln and the Emancipated Slave, to the creation and unveiling of The Lincoln Monument to Philadelphia

Randolph Rogers

Randolph Rogers, the artist of Lincoln and the Emancipated Slave, Lincoln the Emancipator in Philadelphia, and Michigan Soldiers and Sailors Monument in Detroit, was born in Waterloo, New York but grew up in Ann Arbor. Though he stayed dedicated to the University of Michigan, Rogers didn’t stay in Ann Arbor very long. Instead, he expatriated to Italy, where he did most of his work until his death. Before he went to Italy, Rogers did work in New York city and became a talented sculptor. During his work in New York, his employers eventually discovered his talents and funded his trip to Italy. In Italy, he began to study in Florence under Lorenzo Bartolini and then opened his studio in Rome. His first work while in Rome was entitled Ruth Gleaning (1853) which was based off of the story in the bible - this work sparked much attention. So much so that the work he produced directly after that, Nydia, the Blind Flower Girl of Pompeii, garnered so much attention that the studio made 77 replicas of it.

At the end of the Civil War in America, American culture was beyond divided, so an effort was made to unite American culture, identity, and image. Artists, Rogers being one of them, were commissioned to make sculptures/memorials to remember the war, looking specifically at themes of slavery and war heroes. Artists, especially those who work with statues, choose how they wanted the war to live in history. They chose what stories they wanted told. That’s why the idea that Rogers plastic cast/maquette of Lincoln and the Emancipated Slave was an inspiration for his later, similar monuments in Detroit and Philadelphia is so interesting. The monuments and what they represent in their details change so much over time. What story the maquette tells is very different from the story of the monument in Detroit.

After 1854, Rogers started working almost exclusively in “public embellishment” (Morgan). In 1854, Rogers received his first public commission to create John Adams for the Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts. After creating that public statue of a historical figure, his work remained mainly in that genre. He worked mainly in bronze and commemorated war heroes and certain figures of American history. An important question to ask is if Rogers considered whose reputation would live forever in his bronze creations and who did not?

The Creation of Lincoln and the Emancipated Slave/Other Drafts

In the audio recording produced by Jonathan Mitchell, Kirk Savage himself talks about the original three designs that Rogers produced. Rogers developed one rough draft of the emancipation sculpture with the first mock up of the emancipation sculpture that Rogers created was one of Abraham Lincoln standing alone with the emancipation proclamation. The second one created was similar to the first, having a lone Lincoln standing with the Emancipation proclamation however this time he is stomping out “demons.” Finally, Rogers created the mock up of Lincoln and the Emancipated Slave, where Lincoln stands holding a female black figure who is crouching down. Rogers' reasoning for his design choices is unclear, however his final mock up, which is what currently resides in the UMMA, was the one he submitted to the committee to be reviewed.

Savage, in his book, Standing Soldiers, Kneeling Slaves, focuses his language around artwork similar to Lincoln and the Emancipated Slave and the impact it has. He speaks about how most public work that was made in memory of the Civil War featured a soldier as well as a newly emancipated slave. Even his title tells audiences how even after slavery ended, efforts were made to keep certain people in certain positions of society. Artwork played a significant role in this. For instance, the final statues of Rogers that ended up being made told much different stories than that of Lincoln and the Emancipated Slave. As Savage says, “Making the African American body a monumental subject would alter its marginality, would make African Americans newly visible and historically significant in the physical and cultural landscape.” What artists like Rogers chose to do with the African American body in those public works had lasting effects.

Comparison of the Female Figures in the Statues

Rogers’s proposed design for Lincoln and the Emancipated Slave had a fairly controversial depiction of an African-American woman. Lincoln is seen with a stiff, straight posture; towering over the woman below him. Said woman is kneeling on the ground, her wrist being grabbed and lifted by Lincoln. The body language between the two shows a power imbalance. Lincoln’s stature and actions convey the message that he is the Emancipator, the sole figure in helping slaves be freed. Meanwhile, the African-American woman has no power in this situation, her fate being decided by Lincoln himself, pushing the idea that African-Americans were not responsible for their own Emancipation, but rather for other people in power at the time (Savage 76).

Considering that this draft was created around the time of the Reconstruction era (approximately 1866), Rogers was most likely crafting his figures in accordance with ideas of what emancipation was at the time. With the end of the Civil War, as mentioned before, the nation was divided and seemingly broken. President Lincoln seemed to serve as a symbolic hero of the era, the president who had ended the war and consequently, slavery. Because of this common perception of Lincoln as the “Great Emancipator”, Rogers emphasized Lincoln in his own piece to represent the ideas of who the general public considered was responsible for emancipation at the time.

In direct contrast, Rogers’s Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument shows a different outlook on the topic of emancipation. In the piece, Rogers depicts four female figures to represent different concepts, being “Victory”, “Union”, “History”, and “Emancipation”. “Emancipation” stands out in comparison to the other metaphorical female figures. Her features are more noticeably akin to an African-American woman’s, such as having a more curly hair texture. She is depicted giving the soldiers wreaths, a symbol of reward to the soldiers for granting her her freedom (Murray 24). Most notably, she is depicted standing alone, without anyone next to her or helping her in any other way. When put against Rogers’s depiction of an African-American woman in Lincoln and the Emancipated Slave, the “Emancipation” figure is visually much more independent.She holds more autonomy and is portrayed more heroically. However, the similarities between the two depictions rise when reading into the symbolization of the Soldiers’ and Sailors' Monument. The wreaths are a symbol of gratitude, so like “Lincoln and the Emancipated Slave,” the female is still depicted as being in “debt” to another person for her freedom.

Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument was unveiled in Detroit following Rogers’s creation of Lincoln and the Emancipated Slave. Considering context when comparing and contrasting the two, it seems that the Detroit monument shows a change in the previous notions that Rogers’ had captured in his draft for the monument. The absence of Lincoln, or even a male figure assisting the “Emancipation” figure in Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument, or the emphasis of the “Emancipation” figure giving thanks to the soldiers with wreaths could possibly show the changing ideas who had brought emancipation. Rogers makes a statement with “Emancipation”, that rather than Lincoln as the “Great Emancipator'', it was the soldiers who fought in the war who had brought freedom, or even those who were enslaved had brought Emancipation to themselves. The visual distinctions between the female figures in Rogers’s work shows and challenges ideas of who the “Great Emancipator'' is.

The Philadelphia Monument

Randolph Rogers submitted several designs for the commemorative sculpture of former President, Abraham Lincoln, most of which have been lost. However, there is an original mold that currently resides in the University of Michigan Museum of Art, and it reflects one of his original ideas for his sculpture. One of these original sculpture mockups, “Lincoln and the Emancipated Slave,” was created with the intention of bringing focus onto Lincoln’s part in the emancipation of slaves. Rogers wanted to reflect the power dynamic between specifically the newly freed female slave and Lincoln's overall power over that fact. This design however, was not used, the committee in charge of placing the sculpture ended up using a different design with a single figure of just a sitting Abraham Lincoln. Savage suggests that it was “not clear why the committee settled for a single-figure design. Money may have been a factor, since the dual-figure design obviously would have cost more.” Randolph Roger’s early draft of a post-emancipation sculpture, Lincoln and The Emancipated Slave, was ultimately never more than a draft. The sculpture was initially submitted to a committee put together to select two monuments: one of Lincoln alone, and one of Lincoln beside an allegorical figure. The committee did not receive Rogers’ sculpture with much enthusiasm: they remarked on Lincoln’s stiff posture, his frail build, and “especially the inclusion of a demon being crushed beneath Lincoln’s right foot to represent the vanquishing of Rebellion” (Savage 83). Due to the Committee and public response to his initial draft, Rogers made the decision to construct a monument in which Lincoln was alone and seated.* Beyond the obvious difference of Lincoln being depicted alone as opposed to alongside a newly emancipated enslaved woman, the features of Lincoln’s face are much more detailed, his body appears more broad, and his posture is far more engaging. The absence of the emancipated enslaved woman is perhaps the most significant reason why the sculpture in Philadelphia is the one standing for public consumption today. The Philadelphia Monument lacks the somewhat sexual implications that went with the nudity of the first draft’s female figure, and thus, it also lacks the paternal rhetoric, where Lincoln is somewhat of a father figure alongside a vulnerable“child” rather than a newly emancipated adult. The Philadelphia monument may not reflect much of the rhetoric of elevation that was being stressed by abolitionist thinkers and artists at the time, but it satisfied the Committee’s need for a “conventional single-figure monument” (Savage 33), which allowed for the Lincoln Monument in Philadelphia’s completion and official unveiling in 1871. It was received as a “work of great merit” by the public.

Work Cited

“Advertisement.” Philadelphia Inquirer, 1865, pp. Copy of 8. America's Historical Newspapers, https://infoweb.newsbank.com/apps/readex/doc?p=EANX&docref=image/v2%3A110C9BFA1116650%40EANX-11280BE2A535F870%402402397-11280BE6243DF828%408-11280BEE10DE63D0%40Advertisement. Accessed 17 Apr. 2023.

This primary source from an 1865 edition of the Philadelphia Inquirer includes a brief advertisement from the Lincoln Monument Association, the committee in charge of the erection of a Lincoln sculpture post-emancipation. This committee, chaired by the former mayor of Philadelphia Alexandetr Henry, is responsible for choosing the Rogers’ design for a Lincoln memorial that still stands in Fairmount Park, today.

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“Lincoln and the Emancipated Slave.” Lincoln and the Emancipated Slave | UMMA Dialogues - Many Voices, http://tap.ummaintra.net/object/74911. This page on the UMMA Dialogues website is

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“Local Correspondence .” Washington Reporter, March 24, 1869, 60 edition.

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Morris, Murray Freeman Henry. “‘Emancipation," Figure, Detroit, by Randolph Rogers.” Essay. In Emancipation and the Freed in American Sculpture: A Study in Interpretation, 24–26. The Classics Us, 2013.

“[New York; Seward; Lincoln; Randolph Rogers; Lincoln; Seward].” Idaho Statesman, 1896, p. [2]. America's Historical Newspapers, https://infoweb.newsbank.com/apps/readex/doc?p=EANX&docref=image/v2%3A114CF38DF1A90B10%40EANX-1165513A0E880C08%402413636-1165513A354C5150%401-

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“[Philadelphia; Lincoln; Girard; Randolph Rogers].” Washington Reporter, LX, no. 23, 1869, p. 2. Readex AllSearch, https://infoweb-newsbank-com.proxy.lib.umich.edu/apps/readex/doc?p=ARDX&docref=image/v2%3A11C523DE62D7B087%40EANX-138EAA112CBB7E08%402403781-138E6A514DB9B3D0%401-

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