Lorado Taft And The White Rabbits

Lorado Taft And The White Rabbits

Lorado Taft moved to Chicago when he returned from Paris in 1886 and established a small studio in the downtown area. He began a teaching career at the Art Institute of Chicago and soon became involved in the work and planning for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. Head architect for the exposition Daniel Burnham assigned Taft to work with architect William Le Baron Jenney. Jenny designed the Horticultural Building for the fair, and Taft created two sculptural groups for the structure. Noted sculptors from all over the country created other artistic works to complement the other buildings. Burnham expressed concern that the many sculptures might not be finished on time, so he added to Taft’s responsibilities. When Taft requested the assistance of several of his female students, Burnham replied: “Hire anyone, even white rabbits if they’ll do the work.” As a result, a group of gifted women sculptors who became known as the “White Rabbits” emerged. The artists included Helen Farnsworth Mears, Enid Yandell, Mary Lawrence, Julia Bracken, Carol Brooks MacNeil, Bessie Potter Vonnoh, Margaret Gerow, and Janet Scudder. Under the mentorship and tutelage of Lorado Taft, these women became famous sculptors and created numerous works of art.

Helen Farnsworth Mears was born in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, and later studied art in Paris and New York City. While living in New York, she studied with Augustus St. Gaudens and later became his assistant. One of her most important works was her marble statue of Frances W. Willard, the president of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union and a supporter of women’s suffrage. Mears’s statue of Willard is one of two representing the State of Illinois in the National Statuary Hall Collection in the U. S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C. Enid Yandell was born in Louisville, Kentucky, and attended the Cincinnati Art Academy where she won a first-prize medal upon graduation. She co-authored Three Girls In a Flat, an account of her participation in planning the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. She was the first woman to join the National Sculpture Society in 1898.

Mary Lawrence was born in New York City and studied art with Augustus St. Gaudens at the Art Students League in New York. While St. Gaudens was working in Chicago to prepare for the World’s Columbian Exposition, he recommended that Lawrence be commissioned to create the statue of Christopher Columbus that would be placed at the entrance of the Administration Building. Critics resented the fact that Lawrence was given this prestigious assignment because she was a woman. Julia Bracken was born in Apple River, Illinois, and later studied with Lorado Taft at the Art Institute of Chicago. She was awarded a commission to create Illinois Welcoming the Nation for the fair. This statue was later cast in bronze and now welcomes politicians and visitors to the Illinois State Capitol in Springfield.

Bessie Potter Vonnoh was born in St. Louis, Missouri, and enrolled in classes at the Art Institute of Chicago at the age of fourteen. She received instruction from Lorado Taft and worked as one of his studio assistants. She was commissioned to create the Personification of Art for the Illinois State Building at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. She later exhibited her work at both the 1901 Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, and 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, Missouri, where she was awarded a Gold Medal. Janet Scudder was born in Terre Haute, Indiana, and moved to Chicago in 1891 to join Lorado Taft’s “White Rabbits” group. She was commissioned to create figures for the Indiana and Illinois buildings at the World’s Columbian Exposition. Scudder was an active feminist and suffragette and often marched in parades involving women’s issues. She resisted the contemporary practice of having separate expositions for male and female artists.

Annie Louise Keller Memorial

Annie Louise Keller Memorial
Location: Whiteside Park, White Hall, Illinois
Dedication: August 25, 1929
Medium: Pink Marble
GPS Coordinates: N 39° 26.157 W 090° 24.204

Annie Louise Keller, the daughter of Philip F. Keller and Nora Russell Keller, was born near Walkerville, Illinois, on October 31, 1901. When she was still a teenager, her father died, and the rest of the family moved to White Hall. Annie’s friends described her as a conscientious but fun-loving girl who never missed a day of school. Annie also had a dark side and sometimes worried that people didn’t like her. She wrote poetry, and one of her works proved to be eerily prophetic:

“And some day when you are weary
And your friends seem rather few,
What you did to help another
Someone will do the same for you.”

Annie once drove a team of horses through an overflowing creek to get to church on time. She was almost killed at an early age when she and her mother were walking in a field and lightning struck a barbed wire fence that Annie was lifting. Annie graduated from White Hall High School in 1920, taught one year at Diamond, two years at North Lincoln, and three years at Centerville School.

On April 19, 1927, Annie Louise Keller was teaching in the small Centerville School when a large tornado passed through Greene County. Three students had gone home for lunch, but eighteen others were eating in the one-room school. Suddenly the tornado hit the school grounds, and a small shed next to the school was blown away. Annie told the students to get under their desks immediately. The tornado struck at 12:18 p.m., and most of the upper part of the school was destroyed. Flying debris killed Annie instantly. Howard Hobson, Annie’s fiancé, was the first person to enter the school after the tornado’s devastation. He found that a few of the students were injured, but none had died. Seven other people in Greene County were killed by the tornado. Annie’s funeral was held on April 24, 1927, and her body was placed in the family plot in the Russell Cemetery north of Eldred. The following passage from John 15:13 was inscribed on her headstone: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for a friend.”

Members of the community quickly mobilized to recognize Keller for her courage. The Illinois General Assembly passed a resolution to honor Annie and observed a moment of silence. A fundraising committee collected donations from supporters and admirers from all around the country. Lorado Taft was commissioned to design a bronze sculpture to honor Keller’s heroism. School children from all over Illinois donated pennies to pay for the monument, and Taft donated his time. Taft chose pink marble instead of bronze even though the marble was more expensive. Greatly impressed with Keller’s bravery, Taft explained his choice of pink marble: “The effect would be more beautiful than could be obtained through a dark spot of bronze attached to another material. I generally use bronze, but I have a feeling that in this case we have an opportunity for a more ideal and poetic treatment. I am deeply interested in it and do not care if the carving costs me more.” Mary Keller, sister of Annie Louise, traveled twice to Taft’s Midway Studio in Chicago to pose for the sculpture. In his artistic creation, Taft depicted Keller as a teacher with her hair bobbed flapper-style. She holds a small boy and a small girl close to her chest as she envisions a storm approaching. Several schoolbooks dangle from the hand of the small boy. The names of all twenty-one students are carved on one side of the four-sided monument.

Three thousand people from Central Illinois, including all but one of Keller’s students, attended the unveiling and dedication of the Annie Louise Keller Memorial in White Hall on August 25, 1929. State Superintendent of Public Instruction Francis G. Blair presided. Five community leaders delivered speeches including Fannie Merwin, former head of the state teachers organization; V.Y. Dallman, editor-in-chief of the Illinois State Register in Springfield; Attorney Thomas D. Masters from Springfield; State Senater A.S. Cuthbertson from Bunker Hill; and Lorado Taft, the sculptor from Chicago. Given an ovation when he was introduced, Taft said: “I saw here in the heroism of Miss Annie Keller an opportunity to do something in honor of a more or less obscure woman who gave her life without one thought of herself. The value of preserving that ideal appealed to me. The vision I had is set up in the stone there. There is no more beautiful story that that told in the life and death of Miss Keller. I rejoice in my profession that makes possible this memorial to her if it becomes an inspiration to others and perpetuates her sweet memory.”

Superintendent Blair said: “Annie Louise Keller not only by her heroic act but by her daily walk and conversation, by her daily contacts with the pupils in her school, built for herself a spiritual monument. Here all of the children who sat in the schoolroom that fateful day are present, save one. They come to bear their heart-felt tribute to their beloved teacher. Annie Louise Keller had nothing to do in shaping the concrete foundation of this monument. Her hands did not fashion this beautiful shaft. It was not her genius that carved these fine forms and faces. The temple that she has built is in the hearts of these children who encircle this memorial of their teacher. That temple will not corrode, will not crumble, and will not fall.”

Centerville School was rebuilt in 1927 using thirteen-inch thick walls and steel beams. A storm cellar was added in the basement, and the school was later converted to a house. White Hall officials sponsored a memorial service in Whiteside Park on April 19, 1977, the 50th anniversary of the death of Annie Louise Keller. Emily Taft Douglas, the daughter of Lorado Taft and the wife of Paul Douglas, senator from Illinois, was among the dignitaries who knew the Keller story and attended the ceremony. To honor the White Hall heroine, the Chicago Public School system established the Annie Keller Magnet School.

For further reading:

Anderson, Francis P. “Annie Louise Keller: Heroine Extraordinaire.” White Hall Sesquicentennial Book. 1982.

“Annie Louise Keller Memorial: Unveiled At White Hall, Illinois.” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society. Vol. 22, No. 3. October 1929. p. 468-476.

Bettendorf, Elizabeth. “A Young Schoolteacher’s Courage During a Tornado Has Become a Legend.” State Journal-Register. June 15, 1994.

Keefe, William F. “One Small Town, Two Revered Heroes.” The Beacher Weekly Newspaper. Volume 24, Number 24. June 19, 2008.

“Keller Memorial Unveiled At White Hall As Warning Sounds To Save Children.” Illinois State Register. August 26, 1929.

“Timepiece.” Historic Illinois. April, 1998.

Lorado Taft Field Campus

Lorado Taft Field Campus Lorado Taft and several of his colleagues founded the Eagle’s Nest Art Colony in 1898 on a Rock River bluff north of Oregon, Illinois. The members of the group were all Chicago artists and staff members at the University of Chicago art department or the Art Institute of Chicago. The colony flourished as a source of knowledge, natural splendor, and frequent visitations until 1942 when Ralph Clarkson, the last living member of the colony, passed away. Acquired by Northern Illinois University of 1951, the university president advocated the establishment of a field study camp. The site was renovated by University Industrial Arts classes and was converted into the Lorado Taft Field Campus.

By the spring of 1954, three of the buildings from the former art colony, including the Lorado Taft home, were ready for use in the new educational mission. Paul Harrison was appointed the first director of the field campus later that year, and the first class of students came for three weeks of training. The Teacher’s College Board approved a Master’s degree in Outdoor Education in 1963. Seventy-five additional acres of land were purchased in 1965, expanding the campus to 141 acres. A dormitory was built in 1971, and the other buildings were continually upgraded. The Northern Illinois University College of Education ended its relationship with the Lorado Taft Field Campus in 2000, and the campus now operates under the auspices of the Office of the Provost at the university.

The campus now serves year-round as the university’s outdoor education and conference center. Each year more than 6,000 area schoolchildren and their teachers come to the campus and find a resource for the study of ecosystems and the influence that people have on them. The Outdoor Education Program teaches an appreciation, awareness, and understanding of the natural world. The program leaders feel that learning should occur not only in the classroom but also in the outside world. They offer a combination of multidisciplinary classes and an interface with the ecological world.

Carroll County Civil War Soldiers And Sailors Monument

Carroll County Civil War Soldiers And Sailors Monument
Location: Court House Square, Mount Carroll, Illinois
Dedication: October 6, 1891
Medium: Barre Granite
GPS Coordinates: N 42° 06.079 W 089° 58.724

Located in Northwest Illinois, Mount Carroll became the county seat of Carroll County in 1843. Carroll County was originally a part of Jo Daviess County

until 1839. It was named for Charles Carroll, a United States Senator from Maryland and the last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence. On October 24, 1884, a number of Carroll County Civil War veterans organized the Soldiers and Sailors Reunion Society of Carroll County. At a subsequent meeting, D. W. Dame recommended that the society build a monument to honor the 1,284 Civil War veterans of Carroll County. Most of the men fought under Generals Grant, Sherman, McPherson, or Logan. They fought in Alabama, South Carolina, Mississippi, Georgia, or Tennessee. The society members suggested that the monument be placed on the courthouse square in Mount Carroll. The county board voted to contribute $6,000.00 for the project, and the city of Mount Carroll provided $400.00 to construct the cement steps and background.

Lorado Taft was a member of a team of artists who was commissioned to create the Carroll County Civil War Soldiers And Sailors Monument. George H. Mitchell designed the monument, and Josiah Schamel constructed the foundation. John C. Hall designed the annex that was added later when county officials determined that there were many names missing from the original honor roll list. The monument consists of a fifty-foot vertical shaft with a Lorado Taft sculpted soldier holding a flag at the top. Lewis H. Sprecher of Lanark posed for the statue and made several trips to Taft’s Chicago studio to model for it. Two additional statues are attached to the base of the monument, one an infantryman and the other a cavalryman.

Just below Taft’s statue at the top of the monument are eight engraved symbols representing the various army groups that the men of Carroll County fought in during the Civil War. The monument also includes the names of the twelve battles that the men of Carroll County fought in: Atlanta, Chickamauga, Corinth, Fort Donelson, Gettysburg, Hatchie’s Bridge, Nashville, Resaca, Shiloh, Stones River, Vicksburg, and the Wilderness. The following words appear on one face of the monument: “Carroll County: To The Memory Of The Men Who Saved The Union That Their Example May Speak To Coming Generations.” The short phrases “Slavery Abolished” “Peace Restored” and “Courage – Endurance” flank the monument on the other three sides. Two large cannons are positioned on either side of the monument, and a pyramid of cannon balls rests on the ground near the rear of the monument.

The Carroll County Civil War Soldiers And Sailors Monument was unveiled and dedicated in Mount Carroll on October 6, 1891, before a crowd of more than 5,000 people. County Superintendent of Schools John Grossman declared a school holiday on that day, and hundreds of students and teachers attended the dedication ceremony. Carriages full of attendees came from Savannah, Thomson, Lanark, and Shannon. The city was decorated with bunting and flags, and meals were served to the guests by hotels and churchwomen. A band from Savanna led a parade of marchers that included members of various Grand Army of the Republic posts, the Knights of Pythias, the Select Knights of America, and school children. Mount Carroll Mayor N. H. Melendy gave the welcome speech, and J. M. Hunter addressed the assembled soldiers and civilians.

The Carroll County Civil War Soldiers and Sailors Monument was rededicated exactly a hundred years later on October 6, 1991. Two Civil War reenactment groups participated in the celebration. The 121st Illinois Regiment conducted a daylong Civil War encampment, and Battery G of the 2nd Illinois Light Artillery fired the cannons near the monument. Lt. Col. Warren Sweitzer addressed the assembled crowd and thanked the Carroll County Board for constructing the monument a century earlier.

For further reading:

Boyd, Mary et al. Rededication Ceremony of the Carroll County Civil War Soldiers and Sailors Monument. Mount Carroll, Illinois: Developing Communications, 1991.

“The Soldiers and Sailors Monument.” Smithsonian Institution Research Information System. Accessed 8/30/10. http://siris-artinventories.si.edu/

Sparboe, W. H. “Battles Listed on the Carroll County Civil War Monument.”
Mount Carroll Culture, Style, Art, History, & Relaxation. Accessed 12/31/10.
http://www.mtcarroll.com/battlelist.html

Sparboe, W. H. “The Carroll County Civil War Memorial.” Mount Carroll Culture, Style, Art, History, & Relaxation. Accessed 12/30/10. http://www.mtcarroll.com/sparboe.php

Thiem, E. George, ed. “Soldiers and Sailors Society.” Carroll County – A Goodly Heritage. Mt. Morris, Illinois: Kable Printing Company, 1968.

The Legacy of Lorado Taft in Oregon, Illinois

John Phelps was the first European settler to visit the area that later became the city of Oregon, Illinois. He was very impressed with the forests and river valley and built a cabin in 1833. The Potawatomi and Winnebago Native Americans had roamed the area for generations. The Illinois General Assembly chose Oregon as the county seat of Ogle County by 1836. Although Oregon existed as a community for a number of years, it was not recognized as a city until April 1, 1869, when it was organized under an act of the General Assembly of the State of Illinois. The Ogle County Courthouse was built on the corner of Fourth and Washington Streets in 1891.

Lorado Taft first became acquainted with the area in 1898 when he and several colleagues founded the Eagle’s Nest Art Colony on a Rock River bluff north of Oregon. The members of the group, all Chicago artists and staff members at the University of Chicago art department or the Art Institute of Chicago, built the colony on land owned by Chicago attorney Wallace Heckman. The colony flourished as a source of scholarship, natural beauty, and continual visitations until 1942 when Ralph Clarkson, the last living member of the colony, passed away. Acquired by Northern Illinois University of 1951, the site was converted into the Lorado Taft Field Campus and now serves as the university’s outdoor education and conference center.

The Oregon Public Library was established in 1872 and moved into a newly constructed Andrew Carnegie library building in 1908. The library was designed by Chicago architects Allen B. Pond and Irving K. Pond, original members of the Eagle’s Nest Art Colony. A second floor gallery was included in the architect’s plans, and the colony artists used the space for art exhibitions and speeches. Lorado Taft persuaded his colleagues to donate more than fifty works of art to the library collection, and they continue to be on display. The Oregon Public Library was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on May 9, 2003.

Aware of its rich cultural history and the presence of many artistic creations, Oregon city leaders recently developed a Sculpture Trail featuring many sculptures. Lorado Taft is well represented along the trail. Taft’s The Eternal Indian statue stands 125 feet tall above the Rock River in Lowden State Park overlooking the city. Located on the lawn of the Ogle County Courthouse, Taft created The Soldier’s Monument, which honored the county’s war veterans from the Civil War, the Spanish American War, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, and World War I. The Lorado Taft Fountain is located in Mix Park and features two kneeling boys holding fish by a shallow pool.

For further reading:

Call, Keith. Oregon, Illinois. Charleston, South Carolina: Arcadia Publishing, 2005.

Mongen, Charles, ed. The Story of Oregon, Illinois Sesquicentennial 1836-1986.
Oregon, Illinois: The Book Committee, 1986.

Stilson, Jan. Art and Beauty in the Heartland: The Story of the Eagle’s Nest Art Camp at Oregon, Illinois, 1898-1942. Bloomington, Indiana: AuthorHouse, 2006.

Thomas, Stephen P. “Lorado Taft and Chicago’s Oregon Trail.” (Paper presented at the meeting of The Chicago Literary Club, November 16, 2009).

Lorado Taft Bibliography

Bach, Ira J. & Mary Lackritz Gray. A Guide to Chicago’s Public Sculpture.
Chicago, Illinois: The University of Chicago Press, 1983.

Barnard, Harry. The Great Triumvirate of Patriots: The Inspiring Story Behind Lorado Taft’s Chicago Monument to George Washington, Robert Morris, and Haym Salamon. Chicago, Illinois: Follett Publishing, 1971.

Call, Keith. Oregon, Illinois. Charleston, South Carolina: Arcadia Publishing, 2005.

Coon, Richard A. & Nancy C. Coon. Remembering a Favorite Son: The Story of Lorado Taft. Elmwood, Illinois: Elmwood Historical Society, 2003.

Craven, Wayne. Sculpture in America. New York, New York: Thomas Crowell Company, 1968.

Fliege, Stu. Tales and Trails of Illinois. Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 2002.

Garvey, Timothy J. Public Sculptor: Lorado Taft and the Beautification of Chicago. Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 1988.

Goode, James M. The Outdoor Sculpture of Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1974.

Graf, John & Steve Skorpad. Chicago’s Monuments, Markers, and Memorials. Charleston, South Carolina: Arcadia Publishing, 2002.

Gray, Mary Lackritz. Loop Sculpture Guide. Chicago, Illinois: Department of Cultural Affairs, 1990.

Lanctot, Barbara. A Walk Through Graceland Cemetery. Chicago, Illinois: Chicago Architecture Foundation, 1988.

Riedy, James L. Chicago Sculpture. Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 1981.

Rubenstein, Charlotte Streifer. American Women Sculptors. Boston, Massachusetts: G.K. Hall & Company, 1990.

Scheinman, Muriel. A Guide to Art at the University of Illinois. Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 1995.

Stilson, Jan. Art and Beauty in the Heartland: The Story of the Eagle’s Nest Art Camp at Oregon, Illinois, 1898-1942. Bloomington, Indiana: AuthorHouse, 2006.

Taft, Ada Bartlett. Lorado Taft: Sculptor and Citizen. Greensboro, North Carolina: Mary Taft Smith, 1946.

Taft, Lorado. The History of American Sculpture. New York, New York: Arno Press, 1969.

Taft, Lorado. Modern Tendencies in Sculpture. Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press, 1921.

Volkmann, Carl. Lincoln in Sculpture. Springfield, Illinois: The Illinois State Historical Society, 2009.

Weller, Allen Stuart. Lorado in Paris: The Letters of Lorado Taft, 1880-1985. Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 1985.

Weller, Allen Stuart. “Lorado Taft, the Ferguson Fund, and the Advent of Modernism,” in The Old Guard and the Avant-Garde: Modernism in Chicago, 1910-1940. Sue Ann Prince, ed. Chicago, Illinois: The University of Chicago Press, 1990.

The Eternal Indian

The Eternal Indian
Location: Lowden State Park, Oregon, Illinois
Dedication: July 1, 1911
Medium: Reinforced Concrete
GPS Coordinates: N 42° 02.049 W 089° 19.993

Lorado Taft and a group of his Chicago friends established the Eagle’s Nest Art Colony on a bluff overlooking the Rock River near Oregon, Illinois, in 1898. The colony was located on land owned by Chicago attorney Wallace Heckman who leased the property to the group. The charter members of the art colony included Lorado Taft, Wallace Heckman, Ralph Clarkson, Oliver Dennett Grover, Charles Francis Browne, Henry B. Fuller, Hamlin Garland, Horace Fiske, James Spencer Dickerson, Allan B. Pond, Irving K. Pond, and Clarence Dickinson.

During the following years, it became customary for the members to walk along the Rock River bluff, stand with their arms folded over their chests, and watch the sunset. One day in 1905, Lorado Taft reflected on the possibility that Native Americans in past years had stood in the same position on the same spot and also watched the sunset. In 1907, Taft proposed to John Prasuhn, a young German sculptor from Chicago, the idea of creating a giant Native American concrete statue on the river bluff. Prasuhn had experience in engineering and constructing concrete bridges. Taft chose concrete as the medium because he had seen a concrete smokestack being poured at the University of Chicago. He thought that he could construct a statue using the same techniques.

Taft started the project by drawing a sketch. Then he created a small clay mock-up and crafted a six-foot representation of his vision. Art colony member Hamlin Garland served as the model for the figure. In order to determine the proper location for the statue, Taft placed a wooden frame on a wagon and moved it back and forth on the bluff until the site looked good from the town of Oregon. He recommended that the statue be at least fifty feet tall so it could be easily seen. Prasuhn started to work at the site in the fall of 1909 and built the body of the figure using steel rods, wire, and wood. The coming winter halted the project, and a big storm destroyed all they had accomplished the previous year.

Taft and Prasuhn restarted the project in the summer of 1910. Twenty-eight men began pouring concrete on December 20, 1910, and worked day and night in sub-zero weather for ten days. Water was pumped up from the Rock River, two hundred feet below the site. The Portland Cement Company donated the cement for the project. The temporary shelter erected around the site was warmed by steam engines. The massive head of the statue, sculpted by Taft in another location, was hoisted in place. The statue was allowed to cure through the rest of the winter and into spring. When Taft and Prasuhn returned to the site in the spring of 1911, they discovered that all their hard work had not been in vain. A forty-eight foot tall Native-American of great majesty and grandeur emerged from the plaster mold. Over the years, the statue has been associated with the Sauk leader Black Hawk, even though Lorado Taft dedicated it to all Native Americans.

The Eternal Indian was dedicated on July 1, 1911, and dignitaries from throughout Illinois came to the event. Oregon resident and future Governor Frank Lowden served as Master of Ceremonies. Teacher and lecturer Edgar Bancroft gave the principle address. Noted Santee-Sioux Native American physician, Dr. Charles C. Eastman, responded to Bancroft’s address. Members of the Eagle’s Nest Art Colony Elia Peattie and Hamlin Garland also addressed the assembled audience. Lorado Taft spoke briefly after the other speakers finished. “If I even did anything spontaneously, it was this. It grew out of the ground. That is what I hope it may suggest. I think I was a little foolhardy, or I never should have begun it. I’m sure that I never could have carried it through alone. Good fortune sent to my aid Mr. Prasuhn, a sculptor from the Art Institute, who had previously done much as a civil engineer, and knew all about cement. He became interest in my project and undertook the enlargement and the cement work. The statue is a memorial to Mr. Prasuhn as well as to the Indian.” Springfield poet Vachel Lindsay wrote the poem The Black Hawk War Of The Artists to honor the occasion. On November 5, 2009, the National Park Service listed the statue on the National Register of Historic Places. An image of The Eternal Indian was included in a mural for the Lincoln Highway Coalition project in Oregon.

Mother Nature has not been kind to The Eternal Indian over the past 100 years. It was struck by lightning in 1939, and John Prasuhn supervised the repair of the damage. Other restoration efforts were made in 1945 and 1973. At the time of the 75th anniversary of the dedication in 1986, cracks and spalling were repaired with an epoxy mixture. An earthquake on February 10, 2010, caused further damage. The State of Illinois is collecting funds to again repair the statue, and the cost of the work was estimated to be $400,000. The Oregon Trail Days festival was started in 2010 as a fundraising effort to repair and restore the famous statue. The centennial of the dedication of The Eternal Indian was celebrated at the Lowden State Park during the annual Oregon Trail Days on July 16-17, 2011.

For further reading:

“The Birth of the Blackhawk Statue.” Taft Times. Northern Illinois University Lorado Taft Field Campus. Winter 2006.

“Building Lorado Taft’s Big Indian Statue.” The Monumental News. October, 1912.

Fliege, Stu. “Rock River Valley, Lorado Taft, and the Black Hawk Statue.”
Tales & Trails of Illinois. Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 2002.

Green, Chris. “Oregon Campaign To Restore Black Hawk Statue Extended.”
Rockford Register Star. January 5, 2011.

Hild, Theodore W. “The Rock River Colossus.” Historic Illinois.
Vol. 32, No. 5. February, 2010.

Kenyon, Theo Jean. “Taft’s ‘Black Hawk’ Sculpture Marks 100th Year On River Bluff.” Peoria Journal Star. July 18, 2010.

Lennon, Maurice F. “Lorado Taft’s Blackhawk.” The Greyhound Traveler.
September, 1929.

Stilson, Jan. Art And Beauty In the Heartland: The Story Of The Eagle’s Nest Art Camp At Oregon, Illinois, 1898-1942. Bloomington, Indiana: AuthorHouse, 2006.

Taft, Ada Bartlett. “Black Hawk.” Lorado Taft: Sculptor And Citizen. Greensboro, North Carolina: Mary Taft Smith, 1946.

Wolfe, Rachel. “The Eternal Indian.” Outdoor Illinois. Volume XIX, Number 7.
July 2011.


Vachel Lindsay


WRITTEN FOR LORADO TAFT'S STATUE OF BLACK HAWK AT OREGON, ILLINOIS

To be given in the manner of the Indian Oration and the Indian War-Cry.

The Black Hawk War Of The Artists

Hawk of the Rocks,
Yours is our cause to-day.
Watching your foes
Here in our war array,
Young men we stand,
Wolves of the West at bay.
Power, power for war
Comes from these trees divine;
Power from the boughs,
Boughs where the dew-beads shine,
Power from the cones
Yea, from the breath of the pine!

Power to restore
All that the white hand mars.
See the dead east
Crushed with the iron cars—
Chimneys black
Blinding the sun and stars!

Hawk of the pines,
Hawk of the plain-winds fleet,
You shall be king
There in the iron street,
Factory and forge
Trodden beneath your feet.

There will proud trees
Grow as they grow by streams.
There will proud thoughts
Walk as in warrior dreams.
There will proud deeds
Bloom as when battle gleams!

Warriors of Art,
We will hold council there,
Hewing in stone
Things to the trapper fair,
Painting the gray
Veils that the spring moons wear,
This our revenge,
This one tremendous change:
Making new towns,
Lit with a star-fire strange,
Wild as the dawn
Gilding the bison-range.

All the young men
Chanting your cause that day,
Red-men, new-made
Out of the Saxon clay,
Strong and redeemed,
Bold in your war-array!



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The Lorado Taft Museum

Lorado Taft was born in Elmwood, Illinois, on April 29, 1860, and lived there until his family moved to Champaign, Illinois, in 1871. After his death in 1936, his ashes were later scattered in the Elmwood Township Cemetery. To keep Taft’s memory alive in his hometown, local citizens established the Lorado Taft Museum that is housed in the Elmwood Historical Society building. The Mary Wiley Public Library in Elmwood and the Lorado Taft Museum each exhibit collections of Taft memorabilia. The museum includes a Lorado Taft Room and a replica of his Chicago studio. The museum staff recently printed a twenty-page compilation of Taft’s artistic creations entitled Located Works By Lorado Taft. The museum is located at 302 North Magnolia Street, Elmwood, Illinois, and is currently open by appointment only. To schedule a tour of the Lorado Taft Museum, contact Wanda De Ment at 309-635-3618.

Visitors to Elmwood should also visit one of Lorado Taft's most creative sculptures, The Pioneers. Located in Central Park, Taft agreed to donate his work for this project if the town officials could raise the necessary money to cast the sculpture and provide the base for it. The Pioneers was unveiled and dedicated on May 27, 1928. When Taft died on October 20, 1936, his ashes were later scattered in Elmwood Cemetery. The spot is now marked by the sculpture Memory, a replica of a bronze statue entitled Foote Memorial Angel. Lorado Taft created this statue in 1923, and it is located in Jackson, Michigan. Memory was dedicated in Elmwood Cemetery on April 29, 1938.

Biography of Lorado Taft, Part 3.

Lorado Taft had long envisioned the creation of a Dream Museum, a building dedicated to the exhibition of casts of all the greatest sculptures from all over the world. One possible site for the museum was the Palace of Fine Arts or the Fine Arts Building from the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. Unlike the other buildings from this Chicago World’s Fair, this structure was constructed with a brick substructure under its white plaster façade. It originally housed the Columbian Museum, later the Field Museum of Natural History. The site was left vacant when a new Field Museum was opened near downtown Chicago in 1920. Taft led a campaign to raise funds to restore the building and convert it into his Dream Museum. City officials authorized the expenditure of five million dollars to restore the building. Unfortunately, while Taft and his wife were traveling in Europe, philanthropist Julius Rosenwald changed the focus of the project. The Fine Arts Building became the Museum of Science and Industry instead. In the early 1930’s, Taft approached officials from Los Angeles and suggested that his Dream Museum be built on a site in Griffith Park. He received help from his brother-in-law Hamlin Garland and Los Angles Times publisher Harry Chandler. Taft went on the lecture circuit to generate financial support for his Dream Museum. The museum would have cost two million dollars back in the 1930’s. The museum staff organized a premature groundbreaking ceremony on February 9, 1934, and Taft dug out the first shovel of dirt. Because of the Great Depression and Taft’s declining health, sufficient funding never materialized for the construction of his Dream Museum.

Taft’s considerable speaking and writing skills were put to good use in his later years. He published The History of American Sculpture in 1903 and Modern Tendencies In Sculpture in 1921. In collaboration with Frederick Ruskstull, he spoke against the modern and abstract tendencies in sculpture. Taft also gave hundreds of “clay talks” during that time. He actually modeled pieces of clay into numerous shapes as he made his presentation. From early drawings to the casting of plaster, Taft illustrated the various processes of creating sculpture. Taft also gave a series of free lectures in the Chicago area during the 1920’s. His speeches in front of soldiers camped on the Chicago lakefront were very popular as they were sprinkled with Taft’s memorable humor.

Perhaps his greatest legacy to his alma mater, the University of Illinois, is his Alma Mater Group sculpture that now stands in front of Altgeld Hall on the university campus in Urbana. The sculpture was unveiled and dedicated in 1929 and was originally placed behind Foellinger Auditorium. The university also granted Taft an honorary Doctor of Laws degree the day of the dedication and established the Lorado Taft Lectureship on Art a year later. Taft continued to work until just before his death on October 30, 1936, not long after he traveled to Quincy to attend and speak at the dedication ceremony of his Lincoln-Douglas Debate plaque.

For further reading:

Coon, Richard A. & Nancy C. Coon. Remembering A Favorite Son: The Story Of Lorado Taft. Elmwood, Illinois: The Elmwood Historical Society, 2003.

Garvey, Timothy J. Public Sculptor: Lorado Taft And The Beautification of Chicago. Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 1988.

Handy, Jeanne Townsend. “Celebration of Nature: The Art of Lorado Taft’s Illinois.” Illinois Issues. December 2010.

Stilson, Jan. Art and Beauty in the Heartland: The Story of the Eagle’s Nest Art Camp at Oregon, Illinois 1898-1942. Bloomington, Indiana: AuthorHouse, 2006,

Taft, Ada Bartlett. Lorado Taft: Sculptor And Citizen. Greensboro, North Carolina: Mary Taft Smith, 1946.

Weller, Lewis W. Lorado In Paris: The Letters of Lorado Taft, 1880-1885. Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 1985.

Biography of Lorado Taft, Part 2.

Following the World’s Columbian Exposition, Taft and his fellow artists decided to remain in Chicago and support each other’s artistic endeavors. They chose to escape the heat and humidity of Chicago by spending a summer at a farm in Bass Lake, Indiana. An unfortunate outbreak of malaria persuaded them to try another location. In 1898, the group established a new colony overlooking the Rock River near Oregon, Illinois. The group created the Eagle’s Nest Art Colony on land belonging to Chicago attorney Wallace Heckman. The Chicago residents, all members of the University of Chicago art department or the Art Institute of Chicago, were artists, art lovers, musicians, writers, and architects who wanted a place to work, socialize, and exchange ideas. The charter members of the art colony included Lorado Taft, Wallace Heckman, Ralph Clarkson, Oliver Dennett Grover, Charles Francis Browne, Henry B. Fuller, Hamlin Garland, Horace Fiske, James Spencer Dickerson, Allan B. Pond, Irving K. Pond, and Clarence Dickinson. First living in tents and later in summer homes, the members became art missionaries as they reached out to residents of nearby communities to instruct them about art comprehension and knowledge. The colony flourished until 1942 when the last original member passed away. Northern Illinois University acquired the site in 1951 and converted it into the Lorado Taft Field Campus, the university’s outdoor education and conference center.

Taft moved from his downtown Chicago studio to a converted barn in Washington Park near the Midway Plaisance in 1906. This new Midway Studio was soon connected to a pair of frame barns that served as dormitories for male and female students. The architectural firm of Pond and Pond designed thirteen studios for Lorado Taft and associated sculptors on the property. Over the years, more than one hundred students and sculptors came to the Lorado Taft Midway Studios to learn sculpting from the master. The studios currently house the University of Chicago Department of Visual Arts and have been converted to space for students and faculty. The Lorado Taft Midway Studios are listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places and are considered a U.S. National Historical Landmark and a Chicago Landmark.

Biography of Lorado Taft, Part 1.

Lorado Taft: The Prairie State Sculptor

Lorado Taft was born on April 29, 1860, in Elmwood, Illinois. His father Don Carlos was born in Swanzey, New Hampshire, and graduated from Amherst College in 1852. Don Carlos married Mary Lucy Foster in 1856, and they had four children: Lorado Zadok, Florizel Adine, Zulime, and Turbia Doctoria. Lorado, the oldest, was home schooled by his parents and moved with the family to Champaign when his father was appointed Professor of Geology at the University of Illinois in 1871. Taft demonstrated his writing skills at an early age as he became the editor and publisher of a monthly magazine he called the Grandparent’s Gazette. He sent copies each month to his grandparents who lived in Springfield, Massachusetts. Each issue was a hand-written creation and contained a detailed front page. At the age of fourteen, Lorado helped unpack, repair, and arrange the first sculpture collection at the University of Illinois, and he found his vocation as a sculptor. As a student at the University of Illinois, Taft received drawing, modeling, and sculpting lessons. He was awarded his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from that university in 1879 and 1880. Taft’s first wife Carrie Scales died in childbirth in 1892 less than two years after they were married. He married Ada Bartlett in 1896, and they had three daughters.

Starting in 1880, Taft attended the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris and studied with Augustin-Alexandre Dumont, Jean-Marie Bienaime Bonnassieux, and Gabriel-Jules Thomas. Because he was running low on money, he returned to the United States in 1883 and gave lectures, created some sculptures, and taught French lessons in Champaign. After a year, he returned to Paris, and in 1886 he moved to Chicago. There Taft opened his first studio and worked on one of his first commissions, a statue of Schuyler Colfax from Indiana. He served as an instructor at the Art Institute of Chicago from 1886 to 1907, taught at the University of Chicago from 1893 to 1900, and served as a non-resident Professor of Art at the University of Illinois. Taft won awards for his sculptures at national expositions including the Columbian Exposition in 1893, the Pan-American Exposition in 1901, the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in 1904, and the Panama-Pacific Exposition in 1915.

Taft’s artistic career went into high gear in 1891 when he was assigned to work with architect William Le Baron Jenney. Jenney designed the Horticultural Building for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, and Taft created two sculptural groups for the building. Head architect for the exposition Daniel Burnham added to Taft’s responsibilities when he expressed concern that the many sculptures designed to complement the buildings might not be finished on time. When Taft requested the assistance of several of his female students, Burnham replied: “Hire anyone, even white rabbits if they’ll do the work.” As a result, a group of talented women sculptors who became known as the “White Rabbits” emerged. The artists included Enid Yandell, Carol Brooks MacNeil, Bessie Potter Vonnoh, Mary Lawerence, Helen Farnsworth Mears, Margaret Gerow, Janet Scudder, and Julia Bracken. Taft was given credit for enhancing the stature of women sculptors.