Thread by @ngadc

On #MemorialDay, we honor the lives of soldiers who have died while serving in the US Armed Forces. Today, we will remember them with a look at Augustus Saint-Gaudens’s “Shaw Memorial” (1900). #MuseumFromHome

Read more about the Memorial: go.usa.gov/xwaR3

The memorial commemorates the valiant efforts of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw and the men of the 54th Massachusetts, the first Civil War regiment of African Americans enlisted in the North.

The version in Boston Common was dedicated as a monument on Decoration Day on May 31, 1897.

Before it was known as #MemorialDay, the nation celebrated Decoration Day. John A. Logan, Commander and Chief of the Union’s veteran group called the Grand Army of the Republic, initiated the holiday, urging Americans to decorate the graves of the dead with flowers.

May 30th was the originally designated date because there were no anniversaries of battles on that day. A monument to Logan designed by Franklin Simmons and Richard Morris Hunt stands at the center of DC’s Logan Circle.

The 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry was raised shortly after Lincoln’s issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. Recruits came from many states, encouraged by such African American leaders as Frederick Douglass, whose own sons joined the 54th.

Commanded by 25-year-old Shaw, on the evening of July 18, 1863, the 54th Massachusetts led the assault upon the nearly impenetrable Fort Wagner, which guarded access to the port of Charleston, South Carolina. Shaw, at the front of the charge, was one of the first to die.

Of the approximately 600 men of the 54th who participated, nearly 300 were captured, declared missing, or died from wounds that they received that day.

[Kurz & Allison, "Storming Fort Wagner, 1890, @librarycongress]

The bravery of the 54th was widely reported, providing a powerful rallying point for African Americans who had longed for the chance to fight for emancipation.

["Sgt. William Carney," ca. 1900, @librarycongress]

Following the fall of Charleston, South Carolina, on May 1, 1865, members of the 54th Massachusetts regiment attended a parade honoring more than 260 Union soldiers who had died in a Confederate prison. The parade may be the earliest #MemorialDay celebration on record.

After the battle of Fort Wagner, men of the 54th proposed a memorial to Shaw near the Fort. Shaw's father suggested at that time "The monument, though originated for my son, ought to bear, with his, the names of his brave officers and men, who fell and were buried with him."

The memorial was never erected though. In 1865, African American businessman Joshua Benton Smith (who had worked for the Shaw family) initiated a new call for the memorial. In 1883, Saint-Gaudens received the commission.

"Augustus Saint-Gaudens," about 1878-80, @librarycongress

In post–Civil War America, the unprecedented interest in creating public monuments to the nation’s heroes brought Saint-Gaudens many commissions. The sculptor’s ability to combine startling naturalism with lofty allegory made his work eminently suited to such endeavors.

The Shaw Memorial was first imagined by the artist as a traditional equestrian monument to Shaw, but at the urging of Shaw’s family, was reworked by Saint-Gaudens to commemorate the troops as well as their leader.

[“Preliminary sketch for Shaw Memorial,” 1883]

While Saint-Gaudens’s depiction of Shaw was based on photographs, he hired African American models, not members of the 54th, to pose for the other soldiers. The Gallery’s collection includes several plaster models for their heads.

The Gallery’s 2013/2014 exhibition “Tell It with Pride” sought to make real the African American soldiers of the 54th by bringing together vintage photographic portraits of them.

Read a roster of 1,500 soldiers or officers who served in the 54th: go.usa.gov/xwaQ3

Although the sculptor’s contract called for the work to be finished in two years, it took Saint-Gaudens more than a decade to complete the monument, which kept evolving and growing in complexity, becoming as he said "a labor of love."

Two of Shaw’s nephews unveiled the memorial in Boston on Decoration Day, May 31, 1897.

Originally, the monument did not include the 62 soldiers who died in the assault on Fort Wagner. Their names were not added until 1981.

Even while working on the bronze version for Boston, Saint-Gaudens was working on another version of the subject.

This slightly different design, exhibited at the Gallery, is cast in plaster and reflects subtle changes made by the sculptor as he refined the work.

In 1901, the plaster traveled to the Pan-American Exposition and was purchased the following year by the @buffartsacademy. Presented by that museum to the Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site in 1949, it was exhibited there for several decades.

As part of an extensive conservation and casting project, this plaster version of Saint-Gaudens’s masterpiece came to the Gallery on long-term loan in 1997.

Thanks for joining us on #MemorialDay, as we thank the brave men and women who serve our country and remember those who have died while serving.

For today’s #MuseumMomentofZen, Augustus Saint-Gaudens’ “Early Study of the Allegorical Figure for the Shaw Memorial” (1880).