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The Daniel Chester French Papers

Daniel Chester French, American sculptor (1850-1931), was born in New Hampshire and raised in Concord, Mass. In 1888 he settled in New York City; beginning in 1897 he also maintained a studio at his summer home, Chesterwood, outside Stockbridge, Mass., now a property of the National Trust. 
French is best known for his Minute Man (1873-75) in Concord, Mass., and Abraham Lincoln (1915-22) in the Lincoln Memorial, Washington, D.C., but during a prolific career he also executed numerous public sculptures and private commissions, including portrait busts of many notable New Englanders such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and James Russell Lowell. Other works by French include the Doors (1894-1904) of the Boston Public Library; the Washington Equestrian (1896-1900), Paris, France; the Melvin Memorial (1907-09), Concord, Mass.; and the standing Lincoln (1909-12), Lincoln, Neb. 
French was notable for the breadth of his professional and cultural interests. As a founding member and the second chairman of the National Commission of Fine Arts (1910-15), he participated in the development of the federal areas of Washington, D.C., and in the planning of the Panama Canal Zone. He was a trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City (1903-31), a co-founder of the American Academy in Rome, second president of the National Sculpture Society and a member of the National Academy of Arts and Letters. French's life in New York City brought him into contact with such prominent businessmen and philanthropists as Otto Kahn, Jacob H. Schiff, Louis Comfort Tiffany and George Foster Peabody. French served the latter two men as an adviser and trustee for the cultural centers they established to support young writers, musicians and artists at Oyster Bay, Long Island (the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation) and at Saratoga Springs, N.Y. (Yaddo).

Micheal Richman, Editor
Lynne Crane, assistant editor

Front Panel: Detail of Melvin Memorial (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of James C. Melvin, 1912)

Locations of public monuments by Daniel Chester French:

CALIFORNIA
San Francisco:
Thomas Starr King
Genius of Creation
(Panama-Pacific Exposition)

CONNECTICUT
Hartford:
Thomas Gallaudet

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
Archibald Butt-Francis Millet Memorial
Lewis Cass
Samuel F. Dupont Memorial
First Division Memorial
Thomas Gallaudet
Herodotus
Abraham Lincoln

GEORGIA
Atlanta:
Samuel Spencer
Williams Memorial
Savannah:
James Oglethorpe

ILLINOIS
Chicago:
Republic, Agriculture Groups, Quadriga (World's Columbian Exposition)
Marshall Field Memorial
George Washington

INDIANA
Muncie:
Ball Brothers Memorial

IOWA
Council Bluffs:
Ruth Ann Dodge Memorial

KANSAS
Topeka:
James Green

MARYLAND
Annapolis:
George Perkins

MASSACHUSETTS
Boston:
William Bartlett
Rufus Choate
English High School Group
John Boyle O'Reilly
Music and Poetry, Knowledge and Wisdom, Romance and Truth (Public Library Doors)
Wendell Phillips
Science Controlling the Forces of Electricity and Steam, Labor Sustaining Art and the Family (U.S. Post Office and SubTreasury)
George White Memorial
Roger Wolcott
Cambridge:
John Harvard
H.W. Longfellow Memorial
James Lowell
Concord:
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Melvin Memorial
Minute Man
Greenfield:
Russell Memorial
Jamaica Plain:
Clark Memorial 
Milmore Memorial
Francis Parkman Memorial
Slocum Memorial
George White Memorial
Milford:
William Draper
Milton:
World War I Memorial
Wellesley:
Alice Freeman Palmer Memorial
Worcester:
Charles Devens
George Frisbie Hoar

MICHIGAN
Detroit:
Russell Alger Memorial

MINNESOTA
Minneapolis:
John S. Pillsbury
St. Paul:
Facade Figures, Quadriga (State Capitol)

MISSOURI
Kansas City:
August Meyer
St. Louis:
Peace and Vigilance (U.S. Custom House and Post Office)
Napoleon, Sculpture (Louisiana Purchase Exposition)

NEBRASKA
Lincoln:
Abraham Lincoln

NEW HAMPSHIRE
Concord:
Ancient and Modern History (New Hampshire Historical Society)
George Perkins
St. Paul's School War Memorial
Exeter:
World War I Memorial
Franklin:
Daniel Webster

NEW JERSEY
Allamuchy:
Stuyvesant Memorial
Princeton:
Earle Dodge Memorial

NEW YORK
Brooklyn:
Greek Epic Poetry, Greek Lyric Poetry, Greek Religion (Brooklyn Institute)
Marquis de Lafayette
Franklin Ward
Alfred White Memorial
Florida:
William Seward
Irvington-on-Hudson:
Washington Irving Memorial
New York:
Alma Mater (Columbia University)
Dewitt Clinton Group (Chamber of Commerce Building)
Peace Group (Dewey Arch)
Richard Morris Hunt Memorial Brooklyn, Manhattan (Manhattan Bridge)
Justice (New York Appellate Court)
Asia, America, Europe, Africa (U.S. Custom House)
Disarmament (Victory Arch)
Saratoga Springs:
Spencer Trask Memorial

OHIO
Cleveland:
Edward I, John Hampden
(Cuyahoga County Court House)
Commerce, Jurisprudence
(Federal Building)

PENNSYLVANIA
Easton:
Marquis de Lafayette
Philadelphia:
Ulysses S. Grant
George Meade
Law, Prosperity and Power (U.S. Post Office and Courthouse)
Pittsburgh:
James Anderson Memorial 
George Westinghouse Memorial

RHODE ISLAND
Peacedale:
Hazard Memorial

WISCONSIN
Madison:
Wisconsin
Milwaukee:
Chapman Memorial

FRANCE
Paris:
George Washington
Strasbourg:
Rouget de Lisle Memorial

[[image]]
Model for Abraham Lincoln,
Washington D.C.
(Courtesy of the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University)