On December 2, 1863, a bronze statue was placed atop the dome of the United States Capitol. Standing more than 19 feet tall, the figure called “Freedom” was designed and created during a period of great turmoil in American history. But at one point during its creation, it wasn’t clear the statue would even get to its final destination. One man, in particular, played an important role in seeing the statue through to completion. His name was Philip Reid. Born into slavery, Reid grew up on a South Carolina farm, helping various craftsmen such as the blacksmith and the potter. Eventually, he was sold to a man named Clark Mills, who opened a foundry in Washington, D.C. Mills’s foundry was contracted to cast the Freedom statue, but the project was jeopardized when a seemingly unsolvable puzzle arose. And it was Philip Reid who stepped in to solve it.

"Once upon a time, high atop the world, there lived a boy named Billy Hightower and the wind. When a new neighbor appears--a girl in a red hat--Billy Hightower can hardly wait to meet her and introduce himself. But the wind has other ideas"--

A leading expert on the past, present, and future of public monuments in America. An urgent and fractious national debate over public monuments has erupted in America. Some people risk imprisonment to tear down long-ignored hunks of marble; others form armed patrols to defend them. Why do we care so much about statues? Which ones should stay up and which should come down? Who should make these decisions, and how? Erin L. Thompson, the country’s leading expert in the tangled aesthetic, legal, political, and social issues involved in such battles, brings much-needed clarity in Smashing Statues. She lays bare the turbulent history of American monuments and its abundant ironies, from the enslaved man who helped make the statue of Freedom that tops the United States Capitol, to the fervent Klansman fired from sculpting the world’s largest Confederate monument—who went on to carve Mount Rushmore. And she explores the surprising motivations behind contemporary flashpoints, including the toppling of a statue of Columbus at the Minnesota State Capitol, the question of who should be represented on the Women’s Rights Pioneers Monument in Central Park, and the decision by a museum of African American culture to display a Confederate monument removed from a public park. Written with great verve and informed by a keen sense of American history, Smashing Statues gives readers the context they need to consider the fundamental questions for rebuilding not only our public landscape but our nation as a whole: Whose voices must be heard, and whose pain must remain private?

The first book of its kind, with comprehensive up-to-date details Historic sites along the Mall, such as the U.S. Capitol building, the White House and the Lincoln Memorial, are explored from an entirely new perspective in this book, with never-before-told stories and statistics about the role of blacks in their creation. This is an iconoclastic guide to Washington, D.C., in that it shines a light on the African Americans who have not traditionally been properly credited for actually building important landmarks in the city. New research by a top Washington journalist brings this information together in a powerful retelling of an important part of our country's history. In addition the book includes sections devoted to specific monuments such as the African American Civil War Memorial, the real “Uncle Tom's cabin,” the Benjamin Banneker Overlook and Frederick Douglass Museum, the Hall of Fame for Caring Americans, and other existing statues, memorials and monuments. It also details the many other places being planned right now to house, for the first time, rich collections of black American history that have not previously been accessible to the public, such as the soon-to-open Smithsonian Institution National Museum of African American History and Culture, and the Martin Luther King, Jr., National Monument, as well as others opening over the next decade. This book will be a source of pride for African Americans who live in or come from the D.C., Maryland, and Virginia area as well as for the 18 million annual African American visitors to our nation's capital. Jesse J. Holland is a political journalist who lives in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Washington, D.C. He is the Congressional legal affairs correspondent for the Associated Press, and his stories frequently appear in the New York Times and other major papers. In 2004, Holland became the first African American elected to Congressional Standing Committee of Correspondents, which represents the entire press corps before the Senate and the House of Representatives. A graduate of the University of Mississippi, he is a frequent lecturer at universities and media talk shows across the country.

Today we associate the Renaissance with painting, sculpture, and architecture—the “major” arts. Yet contemporaries often held the “minor” arts—gem-studded goldwork, richly embellished armor, splendid tapestries and embroideries, music, and ephemeral multi-media spectacles—in much higher esteem. Isabella d’Este, Marchesa of Mantua, was typical of the Italian nobility: she bequeathed to her children precious stone vases mounted in gold, engraved gems, ivories, and antique bronzes and marbles; her favorite ladies-in-waiting, by contrast, received mere paintings. Renaissance patrons and observers extolled finely wrought luxury artifacts for their exquisite craftsmanship and the symbolic capital of their components; paintings and sculptures in modest materials, although discussed by some literati, were of lesser consequence. This book endeavors to return to the mainstream material long marginalized as a result of historical and ideological biases of the intervening centuries. The author analyzes how luxury arts went from being lofty markers of ascendancy and discernment in the Renaissance to being dismissed as “decorative” or “minor” arts—extravagant trinkets of the rich unworthy of the status of Art. Then, by re-examining the objects themselves and their uses in their day, she shows how sumptuous creations constructed the world and taste of Renaissance women and men.

Account of the Corcoran gallery of art and of the National gallery and museum.