Chicago North / Lincoln Park / Alexander Hamilton Monument - by John Angel

Alexander Hamilton Monument  

Alexander Hamilton Monument 

Sculptor: John Angel

Installed: 1952

The bronze statue is gilded in gold 

Location: Lincoln Park

2732 N Cannon Dr., Chicago, IL 60614 

South of W Diversey Parkway, west of N. Cannon Dr., east of N. Stockton Dr.

Gift of Kate Struges Buckingham, 

who also donated the Clarence Buckingham Fountain in Grant Park

Alexander Hamilton Monument

On the other side of the red granite base is inscribed ..

Gift of Kate Sturges Buckingham [1885 - 1937] ..

Kate Sturges Buckingham, a philanthropist and art patron, also donated the famous Clarence Buckingham Memorial Fountain 

Kate Buckingham considered Alexander Hamilton to be “one of the least appreciated great Americans.” Miss Buckingham believed that as the first Secretary of the Treasury, Hamilton had secured the nation’s financial future and made it possible for her own family to make its fortune in grain elevators and banking.

She [Miss Buckingham] hired New York artist John Angel to model a figurative sculpture of Hamilton and the famous Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen to create a colossal architectural setting for the monument. Saarinen’s proposed 80-foot tall columned shelter was not well received, and by the time Kate Buckingham died in 1937, the sculpture’s setting and location were uncertain.

Several years passed, and executors of Buckingham’s estate and trustees for the monument were accused of conspiring to allow the project’s time limit to expire so that the money would revert to the Art Institute. After the courts ordered the construction to be completed by 1953, the trustees moved swiftly by hiring architect Samuel A. Marx to design a tall granite setting for the monument’s the newly selected Lincoln Park site. The trustees also decided to gild the bronze statue in gold. Marx’s 78-foot tall cantilevered granite exedra overwhelmed the sculpture. After engineering studies revealed that the sculpture’s architectural setting had structural design flaws, it was demolished in 1993. Today, the gilded Hamilton sits on the simple red granite base that was previously mounted to the modern exedra structure...