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Department of Art, Culture and Tourism:
Public Sculptures

Public enthusiasm for commemorative and allegorical monuments figured prominently in American culture during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Fortunately, this coincided with the zenith of Rhode Island's economic prosperity. The accessibility of granite quarries in Westerly and of the Gorham Manufacturing Company, which became one of the world's principal bronze founders, contributed to our state's rich legacy of public monuments. These monuments span the period roughly from 1850 to World War II, most in the form of sculpture produced by nationally and internationally renowned artists. As Rhode Island's primary political, economic, and cultural center, Providence naturally became home to some of the most imposing and significant examples of such civic art, a number of which are described here.

Soldiers and Sailors Monument (1866-71).
Randolph Rogers, American-born artist residing in Rome, Italy, sculptor.
Alfred Stone of Providence, project architect. Center of Kennedy Plaza.

Rogers' relief panels for the Columbus Doors at the U.S. Capitol in the early 1860s secured his illustrious reputation as an accomplished artist. A committee of prominent Rhode Islanders, among them Ambrose Burnside, commissioned him to do the state's memorial to its deceased Civil War servicemen. Rogers designed and executed the statues in Rome, the figures were cast in Munich, and local architect Alfred Stone was assigned the task of assembling and completing the monument in Providence. Among the plaques listing the roster of war dead are four figurative relief panels. Three of them symbolize, respectively, War, Victory, and Peace. The fourth, and most striking, is a figure of an African-American slave with broken shackles dangling from outstretched arms. Though commonly identified as a personification of Emancipation, according to the monument's program the figure is intended to symbolize History. On top of the plinths to which the plaques are affixed are four figures representing branches of the armed services: infantry, cavalry, artillery, and the Navy. Crowning the composition is a larger-than-life figure entitled "America Militant". Originally erected in front of City Hall, the monument was moved to its present location when the current central esplanade of Exchange Place (now Kennedy Plaza) was constructed in 1913.

Spirit of '98, more commonly called The Hiker (ca 1911)
Theodora Alice Ruggles Kitson, sculptor. East end of Kennedy Plaza.

This relaxed figure of an infantryman was erected in memory of servicemen killed in the Spanish-American War. The Gorham firm, founder of the piece, owned the rights to Kitson's design. It manufactured and marketed The Hiker along with a number of other statues, in essence providing municipalities or organizations with an opportunity to purchase monuments "off the shelf." The Hiker was one of the most reproduced of these works, and there are fifty-some copies in cities across the United States.

America and Providence (1908).
J. Massey Rhind, sculptor. Facade of the Federal Building in Kennedy Plaza

The allegorical groups representing the U.S.A. and Providence at the Federal Building are a superb example of sculpture designed as an integral part of an architectural ensemble. On the right of the building's entrance, the trio of Sovereignty, Law and Order, and Justice stands for America. On the left, a robust male figure portraying Industry and a contemplative female figure symbolizing Knowledge accompany a central figure personifying Independent Thought, grouped together to represent Providence. The identification of intellectual freedom as the essence of Providence is a moving sentiment. Could any city ask for a finer emblem of its civic soul?
Photograph by Sandor Bodo

Ambrose Burnside Monument (1887).
Launt Thompson of New York, sculptor. William R. Walker of Providence, architect of base. East portion of City Hall Park.

This equestrian sculpture is the last major commission of Thompson, who made a career out of creating servicemen's memorials in the years after the Civil War. Thompson was well known and highly regarded in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.

The statue was originally sited at the northeast end of Exchange Place (Kennedy Plaza) on a much higher base, and was moved to its present site in 1906. It is a memorial to General Ambrose E. Burnside (1824-1881), an Indiana native who first came to Rhode Island when he was stationed at Fort Adams after the Mexican War. Commissioned to lead a Rhode Island regiment in the Civil War, Burnside led a successful campaign through North Carolina in 1862, capturing a number of cities for the Union. Lincoln placed him in command of the Army of the Potomac for a time. After the war Burnside resettled in Rhode Island and served as Governor (1866-68) and U.S. Senator (1874-81).
Photograph by Richard Benjamin


Carrie Brown Memorial or Bajnotti Fountain (1899).
After the death of Caroline Matilda Brown (1841-1892), a daughter of Nicholas Brown III, her husband Paul Bajnotti of Turin, Italy, commissioned two monuments in his wife's home town. One is the Carrie Tower on the Brown University campus, inscribed with the poignant motto "Love is strong as death." The second is the spectacular fountain in City Hall Park. Sculptor Yandell, who had studied with famed artists Auguste Rodin and Frederick MacMonnies, won the competition for the memorial with her sculpture The Struggle of Life, which depicts a winged angel trying to break free from male figures personifying earthly tendencies.
Photograph by Richard Benjamin

Roger Williams (1874-78).
Facade of Providence City Hall.

In a roundel in the pediment above the main entrance of City Hall is the bust of a gentleman wearing a high-crown, broad-brim hat of a type common in the seventeenth century. This is intended to portray Roger Williams, but the statue is more allegorical than representational, since there are no known portraits of Roger Williams, and no one knows what he actually looked like.

The Turk's Head (1913).
Turks Head Building at the intersection of Westminster and Weybosset Streets.
One of Providence's most famous legends relates that Jacob Whitman, owner of the house that stood on this site in the mid-eighteenth century, had a carving of a Turk on his front porch. Since then this corner has been known as Turks Head. When the present office building was erected in place of an 1850 commercial block on the site, a large-scale head of a glaring Turk was included in the design in reference to this legend. The story may have some truth to it: there is a carving of a Turk's head in the collection of the Rhode Island Historical Society, which is supposed to be the very one from Whitman's front porch.
Photograph by Sandor Bodo

Thomas Doyle Monument (1889).
Henry Hudson Kitson, sculptor. Chestnut Street in front of Beneficent House.

This fine example of a portrait figure erected as a memorial has significant historical associations. During his lifetime Thomas A. Doyle (1827-1886) held a variety of jobs in accounting, banking, investments, and real estate. He is famous, however, for his political and public service career. For twelve years he served in the city council, and for eighteen on the school committee. Most importantly, he was mayor of Providence for eighteen years (1864-68, 1870-80, 1881-86), and died in office. At the time of his passing one writer observed: "During his administration as mayor, the city more than doubled in population and wealth, and at his instigation many important improvements were made," among them reorganization of the police force, construction of the water and sewer systems, creation of Roger Williams Park, and the erection of City Hall. In many ways, the city of Providence today is the legacy of the work of Thomas Doyle. This statue originally stood in front of the Cathedral of Sts. Peter and Paul, and was moved here in 1967 to allow for the modification of Cathedral Square. Urban renewal advocates of the time saw parallels between Doyle's efforts and their own, hence the inscription "Pioneer in Urban Renewal" on the new base created for the sculpture.

World War I Monument (1927-29).
C. P. Jennewein, sculptor. Paul P. Cret of Philadelphia, architect. In front of Providence County Courthouse.
Cret won the competition for Providence's memorial to those who served in World War I with this impressive composition, comprising a base with relief panels of military materiel and emblems, a fluted shaft with a relief band of allegorical figures at its base, and a monumental figure at the top variously identified as Victory or Peace. This is one of numerous war memorials by Cret, an internationally acclaimed architect who developed a modernist style evolved from an artful and sophisticated simplification and reinterpretation of classical forms. The monument was originally sited behind the Federal Building on the bridging that until recently covered the Providence River at that point, officially designated Memorial Square. It was relocated to allow removal of the bridging and relocation of the rivers.
Photograph by Richard Benjamin

Roger Williams Memorial (1936-39).
Leo Friedlander, sculptor. Ralph W. Walker of New York, architect. Congdon Street at Prospect Terrace.

Efforts to build a memorial to the state's principal founder began in 1850 and made some headway in the 1860s, when Williams descendant Stephen Randall made a deed of gift for a monument to be erected on Prospect Terrace. Nothing happened until the 1930s, when a new memorial association was formed. Ralph Walker, a Pawtucket native and principal in the New York firm Walker & Gillette (architects of some of that city's finest skyscrapers and of Providence's beloved 1928 Industrial National/Fleet Bank Building), won the association's competition with his design, which originally included a monumental staircase climbing the hill from Benefit Street to Prospect Terrace. Only the portion of the memorial on the terrace itself was completed, comprising a rectilinear portal fronted by a massive statue of Williams overlooking the city he founded.
Photograph by Richard Benjamin


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