The Story of Lady Freedom

By Sherri Boomershine

All nineteen feet of the lady—also known as the Statue of Freedom—who sits atop the Capitol Dome in Washington DC, has a history all of her own. The female figure with long flowing hair sports a helmet bearing an eagle’s head and feathers. She wears a classical dress secured with a brooch inscribed "U.S." Her right hand holds a sheathed sword wrapped in a scarf, and her left hand holds a laurel wreath and the shield of the United States with thirteen stripes. 

Thomas Crawford, a US sculptor, who had moved to Rome to study with a Danish master sculptor, was commissioned to design the full-size clay model in his studio in Rome. Originally he designed a ‘liberty cap’ for the female’s head to signify the freedoms that Americans enjoyed. The historical liberty cap had been worn by the freed slaves of the Roman Empire as a symbol of their freedom, but Secretary of War Jefferson Davis, whose department was in charge of the Capitol expansion project, objected to the statue wearing a liberty cap, since it symbolized the freedom of slaves.

When Thomas Crawford died suddenly of cancer in 1857 at the age of forty-three, the statue was still sitting in his studio in Rome. A year later in the spring, Crawford’s widow shipped the statue packed in six crates via a sailing vessel. During the voyage to the US, a storm arose, and the small ship was in danger of capsizing. The crew was just about to throw the six crates overboard when the captain protested. “We do not want to throw freedom overboard,” he said. The ship began leaking to the point that it could go no farther than Bermuda, where the crates were left in storage until other transportation could be arranged. Fortunately, all the crates arrived in Washington a year later in the spring of 1859.

In June 1860, casting of the Statue of Freedom began. However, when the time came to move the plaster model from the Capitol to the foundry for casting, no one knew how to separate it, and the local sculptor refused to help unless they gave him a pay raise. Fortunately, a Black slave, Philip Reid, was there. He figured out a way to use a pulley and tackle to reveal the seams between the sections. The statue was successfully separated into its five sections and transported to the foundry.

Reid was the only known slave that worked on the Statue of Freedom. He worked as a laborer alongside four white men. As an enslaved worker, Reid was paid for the Sundays he worked, but his slaveowner, who’d purchased him for $1200, received the payment for his work the other six days. Reid worked most weeks without a break between July 1, 1860 and May 16, 1861, for which he was paid $41. He signed for his paycheck with an X because he didn’t know how to read or write. Philip Reid received his freedom on April 16, 1862, when President Abraham Lincoln signed the Compensated Emancipation Act that released certain persons held to service or labor in the District of Columbia. Reid was a free man when the last piece of the Statue of Freedom was put into place atop the Capitol Dome on December 2, 1863. https://www.aoc.gov/explore-capitol-campus/blog/philip-reid-and-statue-freedom 

Sherri Boomershine is a woman of faith who loves all things foreign whether it’s food, culture, or language. A former French teacher and flight attendant, her passion is traveling to the settings of her books, sampling the food, and visiting the sites. She visited a Netherlands concentration camp for A Song for Her Enemies, and Paris art museums for What Hides beyond the Walls. Sherri lives with her husband Mike, her high school sweetheart, whom she married fifty-five years later. As an author and editor, she hopes her books will entertain and challenge readers to live large and connect with their Savior. Join, chat, and share with her on social media. Newsletter Facebook Twitter Instagram Website

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