Frederick Douglass Monument
This broadside commemorates the construction of a monument to Frederick Douglass in Rochester, NY. The cornerstone of the monument was laid on 20 July 1898 and was unveiled eleven months later on 9 June 1899. The monument was initiated by local activist, John Thompson. Sculptor Stanley Edwards used Douglass’s son, Charles Remond Douglass, as a model for the statue. The unveiling was attended by Douglass’s widow, Helen Pitts Douglass, and New York Governor Theodore Roosevelt. Visualizing Slavery: Art Across the African Diaspora claims that the monument is the first public moment dedicated to an African American in the United States.
The quote reads, "Men do not live by bread alone; so with nations, they are not saved by art, but by honesty; not by the gilded splendors of wealth, but by the hidden treasure of manly virtue; not by the multitudinous gratifications of the flesh, but by the celestial guidance of the spirit."