Statues change, but history must be remembered

In 1866, the U.S. Congress passed a resolution approving the creation of a Statuary Hall a chamber in the U.S. Capitol where the House of Representatives had met for a half a century. The room, surrounded by columns and capped with a half dome ceiling, had become too small for the growing number of members it needed to hold as the nation expanded, and was as a glorified storage room for nearly a decade after the House moved to its current chamber in 1857.

In the resolution, every state was invited to submit two statues of prominent residents to be erected in what would be known as a national and artistic hall of fame. By the early 1900s, the Iowa General Assembly had chosen Samuel Kirkwood, a six year governor who later ascended to the U.S. Senate when James Harlan, Iowa’s senior deliberator, was named secretary of the interior. Harlan, of Mt. Pleasant, in addition to his years as a public servant, had been an outspoken advocate of abolition, was a close friend of Abraham Lincoln, and his daughter, Mary, married President Lincoln’s son Robert Todd Lincoln.

Fame, and reputation, can be fleeting, however. Just when you think your esteemed record is cast in concrete, or bronze, in this case, in 2014, the state of Iowa removed James Harlan from the Hall and replaced him with Norman Borlaug, a scientist and engineer who improved methods of raising crops around the world.

This was not unprecedented. Other states had demoted other statues in the past, but it seems abolition and civil rights don’t hold the same weight they used to in the memory of the nation.

Last month, the state of Kansas unveiled a sculpture of Amelia Earhart. Earhart was born at Atchison, Kansas, in 1897, but the statue could also just as well belong to the Hawkeye State, as Earhart’s family moved to Des Moines in 1907 and it was there, at the state fair grounds the following year, that she saw her first airplane. Fourteen years later, it was another Iowan, Neta Snook, from Ames, who taught the up and coming pilot how to fly.

Earhart, of course, went on to be the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean, the Pacific Ocean via Hawaii, and, in 1937, disappeared in a historic attempt to circumnavigate the globe.

Those are great achievements, and so is genetically manipulating plants so that they can yield more grain in more places, but just as the statue of Borlaug replaced one of a leading opponent of slavery, so also did Earhart’s statue this year.

Her likeness now stands where the marble memorial to John James Ingalls had presided since 1905. He, too, was a resident of Atchison, and had, at the age of 26, led the abolitionist movement in Kansas, co-authoring the state’s constitution to assure it would forever be a “free” state. Ingalls served as judge advocate general during the Civil War and rose in rank to Lieutenant Colonel. He was then elected to the U.S. Senate as an advocate of freedom for all races during the era of Reconstruction and remained a voice for equality until retiring in 1891.

Earhart’s statue stands as a tribute to the accomplishments of women, and that’s praiseworthy, and Borlaug’s bronze is a testament to the wonders of science. However, what about those who risked their lives in the names of the hundreds of thousands who had no freedom? Should we forget their names and the movements and improvements they fought for?

It is, indeed, a delicate balance. While we lost Ingalls and Harlan in the last seven years, just a month ago, the state of Florida replaced a statue of Confederate Gen. Edmund Smith with a gleaming statue of Mary McLeod Bethune, delegate of the founding of the United Nations, co-creator of the United Negro College Fund and President of Bethune-Cookman University.

Amelia Earhart proudly represents Kansas (and, circuitously, Iowa) and Borlaug is an inspiration to the benefits of science, but let us not forget the honorable names of John J. Ingalls and James Harlan.

David V. Wendell is a Marion historian, author and special events coordinator specializing in American history.