Statue of Historic Figure: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. - Boston, MA

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Boston, MA

N 42° 20.974 W 071° 04.644

Short Description: 

A bronze bust of poet, physician, and author Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. is located in the Bates Reading Room of the McKim Building of the Boston Public Library at 700 Boylston St., Boston,

Long Description:

The life-size bronze bust of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. depicts Holmes from the mid-chest up. He is wearing a bow tie, vest and suit jacket. The bust rests on a 4' high black pedestal. A metal sign attached to the top of the pedestal is inscribed:

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES

1809 - 1894

BY RICHARD EDWIN BROOKS

PLACED IN THE LIBRARY BY THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF BOSTON

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. was a polymath. He was a poet, novelist, biographer, essayist, and a physician. Born on August 29, 1809 in Cambridge, MA, he graduated from the Phillips Academy, Harvard College, and Harvard Medical School. He wrote poetry at an early age and his most famous poem "Old Ironsides" was published when he was only 21, in 1830. The poem was influential is the saving of the USS Constitution, now the oldest commissioned ship in the world.

Holmes, along with Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, William Cullen Bryant, John Greenleaf Whittier, and James Russell Lowell were members of the Fireside Poets. A group of American poets whose works rivaled those of English poets. He often published his works in The Atlantic Monthly.

Poetry:

Old Ironsides 
The Chambered Nautilus 
"Songs in Many Keys 
Poems 

Medical and psychological studies:

Puerperal Fever as a Private Pestilence 
Mechanism in Thought and Morals 

Table-talk books:

The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table 
The Professor at the Breakfast-Table
The Poet at the Breakfast-Table 
Over the Teacups 

Novels:

Elsie Venner 
The Guardian Angel 
A Mortal Antipathy 

Articles:

"The Stereoscope and the Stereograph", The Atlantic Monthly, volume 6 (1859)
"Sun-painting and sun-sculpture", The Atlantic Monthly, volume 8 (July 1861)
"Doings of the sun-beam", The Atlantic Monthly, volume 12 (July 1863)

Biographies and travelogue:

John Lothrop Motley, A Memoir 
Ralph Waldo Emerson 
Our Hundred Days in Europe 

Statue of Historic Figure: Sir Walter Scott - Boston, MA

Sir Walter Scott

Boston, MA

N 42° 20.974 W 071° 04.644

Short Description:

A marble bust of Scottish poet, playwright, novelist, and author Sir Walter Scott is located in the Bates Reading Room of the McKim Building of the Boston Public Library at 700 Boylston St., Boston, MA.

Long Description:

The white marble bust of Sir Walter Scott by British sculptor John Hutchison. It is a replica of the sculpture by Sir Francis Chantrey that is located in the library at Abbotsford, Scotland. Walter Scott is depicted from mid-chest up. He is wearing a kilt wrapped around his upper body as a cape. He is looking towards his left. The bust rest on a circular plinth on top of a 5' high circular polished black granite pedestal

A sign on the wall next to the bust is inscribed:

SIR WALTER SCOTT
copy after Sir Francis Chantrey, 1896-1899

John Hutchison
British, 1841-1911
Marble
-------------------------------------------------
GIFT OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE SCOTT MEMORIAL
IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY, 1899

Walter Scott was born in Edinburgh, Scotland on August 15, 1771. He studied law at Edinburgh University. At age 25, while practicing law, he began writing poetry. He achieved recognition as a poet with the publication of the poem, "The Lay of the Minstrel", in 1805. One of his most popular poems "Lady of the Lake" was published in 1810.

Sir Walter Scott is considered to be the creator of the modern historical novel. He wrote the tale of the 1745 Jacobite rising in the Waverley Novels, which was first published anonymously in 1814. His most famous novels include Rob Roy (1817) and Ivanhoe (1820). Scott was also a playwright - MacDuff's Cross (1823) and non-fiction writer The Journal of Sir Walter Scott (1825–1832).

Sir Walter Scott died of typhus on September 21, 1832 and is interred in Dryburgh Abbey, Scotland.

Statue of Historic Figure: Alice Stone Blackwell - Boston, MA

Alice Stone Blackwell

Boston, MA

N 42° 20.974 W 071° 04.644

Short Description: 

A marble bust of women's rights activist Alice Stone Blackwell is located next to her mother, Lucy Stone, in the Bates Reading Room of the McKim Building of the Boston Public Library at 700 Boylston St., Boston, MA.

Long Description:

A 2' high white marble bust of Alice Stone Blackwell depicts the head and shoulders of the editor, author, and women's rights activist.

A metal sign on the plinth of the bust is engraved:

ALICE STONE BLACKWELL

LEADER IN SUFFRAGE FOR WOMEN

EDITOR, "WOMEN'S JOURNAL"

FRANCES L. RICH, SCULPTOR

PRESENTED BY THE

LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS OF BOSTON

A sign on the wall next to the bust is inscribed:

Alice Stone Blackwell 1960
Frances L. Rich
American, 1910-2007
Marble

Social activist Alice Stone Blackwell (1857-1950)
spent the latter part of her childhood in Dorchester,
Massachusetts, where her family members were
prominent participants in the abolition and women's
suffrage movements. A talented writer, Blackwell
graduated from Boston University in 1881 and
eventually became chief editor of the Women's
Journal, an influential publication promoting woman's 
rights. Blackwell applied her activism for the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People
(NAACP) and translating texts of underrepresented
immigrant populations, among others. An actress
and sculptor, Frances L. Rich also produced
likenesses of Margaret Sanger, Katherine Hepburn 
and Diego Rivera

____________________________________________________
GIFT OF MRS. STANLEY McCORMACH THROUGH
THE BOSTON LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS, 1960

Alice Stone Blackwell was also active in Woman's Christian Temperance Union and, in 1903, she reorganized the Society of Friends of Russian Freedom in Boston. She was president of the New England and Massachusetts Woman Suffrage associations and honorary president of the Massachusetts League of Women Voters.

Publications of Alice Stone Blackwell:

Growing Up in Boston's Gilded Age: The Journal of Alice Stone Blackwell, 1872–1874
The Ballot and the Bullet (1897)
Armenian Poems translated by Alice Stone Blackwell (1896)
Songs of Russia (1906)
Songs of Grief and Joy by Ezekiel Leavitt translated from Yiddish. (1908)
Some Spanish-American Poets translated by Alice Stone Blackwell (1929)
Lucy Stone: Pioneer of Woman's Rights (1930)

Statue of Historic Figure: Lucy Stone - Boston, MA

Lucy Stone

Boston, MA

N 42° 20.974 W 071° 04.644

Short Description: 

A marble bust of women's rights activist Lucy Stone is located in the Bates Reading Room of the McKim Building of the Boston Public Library at 700 Boylston St., Boston, MA.

Long Description:

A 2' high white marble bust of Lucy Stone depicts the 19th century abolitionist and women's rights activist from the mid-chest up. She is wearing a V neck blouse and a bonnet.

A metal sign on the plinth of the bust is engraved:

LUCY STONE

A LEADER IN THE CAUSE OF

SUFFRAGE FOR WOMEN

A sign on the wall next to the bust is inscribed:

Lucy Stone 1892
Anne Whitney
American, 1821-1915
Marble

Lucy Stone was a prominent American orator,
abolitionist, and suffragist. She significantly
influenced Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady
Stanton to take up the cause of women's rights;
the three are considered the nineteenth-century
triumvirate of American feminism. This bust
by noted American sculptor Anne Whitney at
one time occupied an obscure spot on the third
floor of the Mckim Building. However, in 1921,
the League of Women Voters lobbied the library's
trustees to relocate it to Bates Hall to mark the
passage of women's suffrage and honor Stone's
contributions. A commemorative portrait of her
daughter, activist Alice Stone Blackwell, is also 
in the collection of the BPL.

____________________________________________________
GIFT OF JUDITH WINSOR SMITH, EDNAH DOW CHENEY,
AND GEORGE A. WALTON.

Lucy Stone was a prominent orator, abolitionist, and suffragist, and a vocal advocate and organizer promoting rights for women. She attended Oberlin College in Ohio and was the first woman from Massachusetts to earn a college degree. She was married to Henry B. Blackwell but retained her own name throughout her life.

She worked as a lecturer for the American Anti-Slavery Society. After the Civil War she became a strong advocate for women's suffrage and formed the Women's Suffrage Association of Boston. She founded and edited the Women's Journal, a weekly feminist magazine. Stone helped form the National Women's Rights Convention held October 23–24, 1850, in Worcester, MA. She also helped form the American Woman Suffrage Association, which built support for a woman suffrage Constitutional amendment by winning woman suffrage at the state and local levels.

Statue of Historic Figure: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - Boston, MA

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Boston, MA

N 42° 20.974 W 071° 04.644

Short Description: 

A marble bust of poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is located in the Bates Reading Room of the McKim Building of the Boston Public Library at 700 Boylston St., Boston, MA.

Long Description:

On the second floor of the Boston Public Library is the hugh Bates reading Room. There you will find busts of many famous persons.

The life size, white marble bust of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow rests on a black marble 5' high pedestal. He is depicted from mid-chest up, wrapped in a robe with wide labels. A sign on the wall next to the sculpture is inscribed:

                                            Henry Wadsworth Longfellow c.1879
                                            Samuel James Kitson 
                                            American, 1848-1906
                                            Marble

                                            -------------------------------------------------------------------
                                            PURCHASED BY BOSTON CITY COUNCIL, 1912

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born on February 27, 1807 in Portland, ME then a part of Massachusetts. He graduated Bowdoin College, in Brunswick, ME and became a professor at Bowdoin then Harvard Colleges. He is most famous for is lyric poetry although he also wrote several novels. His most famous poems include:

The Village Blacksmith (1840)
Poems on Slavery (1842)
The Wreck of the Hesperus (1842)
Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie (1847)
The Song of Hiawatha (1855)
The Courtship of Miles Standish and Other Poems (1858)
The Children's Hour (1860)
Paul Revere's Ride (1860)
Tales of a Wayside Inn (1863)
The Masque of Pandora and Other Poems (1875)

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, along with Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., William Cullen Bryant, John Greenleaf Whittier, and James Russell Lowell were members of the Fireside Poets. A group of American poets whose works rivaled those of English poets.

Longfellow died on March 24, 1882 in Cambridge, MA. In 1884, he was the first and only American poet to have his bust placed in Poet's Corner in Westminster Abbey, London.

Statue of Historic Figure: Sir Henry Vane, Boston, MA

Sir Henry Vane

Boston, MA

N 42° 20.974 W 071° 04.644

Short Description: 

A statue of the 6th Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Sir Henry Vane, is located in a niche in vestibule of the Dartmouth Street entrance of the McKim Building of the Boston Public Library.

Long Description:

A 7.8' by 3.5' by 3' bronze sculpture of Sir Henry Vane stands on top of a 3.25' by 2.8' by 2.8' green marble pedestal. Vane is wearing formal 17th attire including shirt with a ruff neck, boots with spurs, breeches, a jacket with large cuffs, a cape, and a hat folded up on the left side. He is holding a coat over his left arm and has a baton tucked into the crook of his right arm. The statue was created by Frederick William MacMonnies in 1893 and cast at Jaboeuf & Bezout Fondeurs.

A bronze plaque on the bronze plinth is inscribed with a quote from the John Winthrop, the 3rd Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony:

           BUT IT PLEASES GOD TO STIR THEM UP SUCH FRIENDS, VIZ.,
           SIR HENRY VANE, WHO HAD SOMETIME LIVED AT BOSTON
           AND THOUGH HE MIGHT HAVE TAKEN OCCASION AGAINST US FOR
           SOME DISHONOR WHICH HE APPREHENDED TO HAVE BEEN UNJUSTLY
           PUT UPON HIM HERE, YET BOTH NOW AND AT OTHER TIMES HE
           SHOWED HIMSELF A TRUE FRIEND OF NEW ENGLAND, AND A
          MAN OF A NOBLE AND GENEROUS MIND.  WINTHROP 

A bronze plaque on the base is inscribed:

SIR HENRY VANE

GOVERNOR OF THE

COLONY OF THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY 1636

BORN 1612 BEHEADED 1662

AN ARDENT DEFENDER OF CIVIL LIBERTY AND

ADVOCATE OF FREE THOUGHT IN RELIGION

HE MAINTAINED THAT GOD, LAW AND PARLIAMENT

ARE SUPERIOR TO THE KING

THIS STATUE WAS PLACED HERE AT THE REQUEST OF 

JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE, D.D., AN HONORED CITIZEN

OF BOSTON WHO NOBLY LABORED FOR THE ABOLITION 

OF SLAVERY IN AMERICA 

Sir Henry Vane born in 1613 in Essex, England into a noble family. After studying at Oxford and travelling through Europe he adopted Puritan views and joined the Puritan migration to the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In 1637, Vane was elected governor of the colony.

He became a supporter of Anne Hutchinson who espoused Antinomianism, a belief that existing laws and practices were not necessary for salvation. He also supported the freedom of religion, the cause of Roger William, the establishment of the Rhode Island Colony, and founding of Harvard College.

In 1639 he returned to England to become a position as Treasurer of the Royal Navy and was made a knight by King Charles. He supported Oliver Cromwell's position of freedom of religion over that of King Charles. However after the Parliamentary victory in the First English Civil War, the Presbyterian group in the House of Commons introduced legislation hostile to the views on religious tolerance held by Vane.

The Second English Civil War saw the defeat and execution of King Charles and the formation of a Commonwealth under Oliver Cromwell. Vane headed the committee that reformed the navy, drafted new Articles of War, and formally codifying naval law. Vane and Cromwell disagreed on many domestic issues and Vane retired and formed a religious teaching group, known as "Vanist". After Cromwell's death in 1658, King Charles II was restored to the throne. Vane was arrested on July 1, 1660 on the orders of the King and imprisoned in the Tower of London. He was transferred to He was transferred to the Isles of Scilly in October 1661. He was returned to the Tower of London and on 2 June 2, 1662 he was charged with of high treason against the King. He was beheaded on June 14, 1662.

Philatelic Photograph: Mural XII - Sir Galahad Passes From The Land - Boston, MA

Mural XII

Sir Galahad Passes From The Land

Boston, MA

N 42° 20.974 W 071° 04.644

Short Description: 

The mural "Sir Galahad passes from land" is on display in the Abbey Room of the McKim Building of the Boston Public Library at 700 Boylston Street, Boston, MA.

Long Description:

American painter Edwin Austin Abbey was commissioned to create a fifteen-panel mural for the Boston Public Library. He chose as his subject "The Quest for the Holy Grail". This set of murals is on display in the Abbey Room of the McKim Building of the Boston Public Library. The murals were installed between 1895 and 1902.

A part of Mural XII of this series "Sir Galahad passes from the land" is depicted on the United States stamp issued on February 1, 2001 as part of American Illustrators series of 25 stamps. Sir Galahad weds the maiden he freed, Blanchefleur, but, as the mural depicts, leaves on a white horse on their wedding night in order to remain a virgin and complete his quest.