Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/216603
Fig. 2. Stereoview by Bell & Bro., 1867, of Horatio Greenough, Rescue, marble, erected 1853, removed 1958, transferred to Smithsonian Institution, 1976. north cheek block has a larger-than-life frontiersman protecting his wife and child by overpowering a seminude male native warrior (fig. 2). These statue groups were removed in 1958 when the East Front was extended. The figure of the frontiersman in the Rescue group was damaged when it was dropped from a crane during removal to a storage facility in 1976. The Discovery group also was never returned, perhaps as a reflection of twentieth century changes in attitude toward the way Native Americans had been depicted. The triangular pediment on the east front of the new Senate wing was still another opportunity to replicate the motif of Native American decadence. Design of the sculptures for the pediment was assigned to Thomas Crawford. An American living in Rome, he had been trained by the Danish neo-classical sculptor Bertel Thorwaldsen and was considered one of the leading American sculptors of his time. The Progress of Civilization (originally appropriately entitled The Rise of American Civilization and the Decadence of the UNITED STATES CAPITOL HISTORICAL SOCIETY Indian Races in Crawford's correspondence) is clearly in tune with the underlying ideology. On the pediment of the entry figure of America. She looks heavenward in recognition of the to the Senate wing, it recapitulated the story of Euro-American role of Providence in the national expansion. settlement across the continent. The pediment sculpture was To the right of the figure of America, a figure of the woodsman erected in 1863; the initial figure is a central female with his ax is emblematic of the progress of civilization, while the adjacent Indian on the right, a hunter, is emblematic of the wilderness. To the left of the central figure stands the soldier, then the Fig. 3. Detail of Progress of Civilization, by Thomas merchant with his hand on the globe, and finally the mechanic Crawford, Senate Pediment, East Front, marble, symbolizing industrial and agricultural accomplishment. Standing 1863. See also Fig. 8A on pages 20-21. clothed schoolboys contrast with the crouching dying Indian chief on the right (fig. 3). The role of the Indian is to give way and for ARC HITE his family to fade into oblivion ending in the grave. CT O F TH E CA PITO L It is in the Rotunda that this motif is most highly developed. Even in the 1830s, reliefs over the doors to the Rotunda documented mainly pre-Revolutionary War episodes that reflected the subordination of the indigenous Indians to the EuroAmericans. The relief over the west door, The Preservation of Captain Smith by Pocahontas (1825), illustrated the act of intercession by the Indian princess that saved the Jamestown settlement (fig. 4). Above the east door, the Landing of the Pilgrims (1825) relief illustrated the equally important landing by the founders of the New England settlement, who were aided by the gift of corn from the subservient kneeling noble savage (fig. 5). William Penn's Treaty with the Indians (1827) above the north door THE CAPITOL DOME 25