During the process of writing Episode 7 of The Alley Cast, I got really interested in this monument to Richard Allen, founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. If you haven’t listened to the episode yet, leaders of the AME denomination petitioned the organizers of the Centennial celebration (1876) to have a display at the fair—the only exhibit by Black Americans in the whole thing. They commissioned a monument of Richard Allen and the various marble sections were en route by train when they were lost as the train car they were in plunged off a bridge into a river. Only the bust of Allen, which was in a separate train car, survived, and made it onto display at the Centennial.
The bust of Richard Allen, displayed at the Centennial exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876.
So that’s pretty wild, right? Perhaps even as wild is the fact that shortly after the Fair, this bust seemed to vanish into thin error. Perhaps it was displayed at Mother Bethel AME church, the church Allen had founded, and then…poof. Until just a few years ago when it was found, on display at Wilberforce University. The Wilberforce administration knew it was a bust of Richard Allen, they just didn’t know it was that bust. The whole story is pretty wild and was reported on various places including the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Upon the bust’s rediscovery, it was returned (temporarily at least) to Mother Bethel AME and the church posted a bunch of cool photos of its conservation and installation over on their Flickr page, one of which I have used above.
One final note of interest. Cincinnati monument maker Alfred White was commissioned to design the whole monument, but several secondary sources, including Gary Nash’s First City, suggest that the bust itself was designed by sculptor Edmonia Lewis. She was a Black and native artist who lived much of her adult life in Rome and who was one of the most accomplished sculptors of her time. Lewis created many sculptures of abolitionist heroes and historical figures, so it is possible that she made the Allen bust, but I think it’s also possible that these references are a conflation of the Allen bust and another sculpture displayed at the fair, The Death of Cleopatra, which was indeed by Lewis. That sculpture was also “lost” for a time, but now is part of the Smithsonian’s collection. For more about Edmonia Lewis, I highly recommend this episode of Nate DiMeo’s The Memory Palace podcast.
Also, just as I was publishing the podcast episode, I saw this piece from Hidden City which details another fight for a memorial. Fifty years after the Centennial, initiated during the ill-fated Sesquicentennial celebration, the All Wars Memorial to Colored Soldiers and Sailors was created to pay tribute to America’s Black armed forces, but was originally tucked behind Memorial Hall in Fairmount Park, much to the chagrin of its supporters. It now sits along the Benjamin Franklin Parkway as originally intended.
-TM