I’VE told you about sculpture from Egypt and Assyria，Greece and Rome，Italy and France，but not a thing about our very own sculpture made in the United States.I did tell you that Houdon made his bust of Washington at Mount Vernon，but Houdon himself was not an American，so he doesn’t count for the United States.
The reason I haven’t told you about American sculpture is that American sculpture was late in starting.Probably the last thing the early settlers would have thought of bringing across the ocean to America would have been a statue.Statues aren’t easy to carry around and the ships were small and crowded.Then when the settlers got here，they were too busy even to try to make statues.They had to chop down trees，build homes，plant crops，fight Indians，explore the country.Two hundred years after the first white settlement of America，they could boast of no real sculptors and，of course，they had no sculpture of their own.
At that time ships were built along the seacoast to bring back goods from other countries，and to hunt whales.These were splendid square-rigged sailing vessels.The owners were proud of their ships and decorated the ships’bows—the front part—with wooden figures called figure-heads.These figure-heads were generally the figures of mermaids or sea nymphs and seemed to be sprouting out of the bows of the ships.Some figure-heads were full-length figures，some were carved as far as the waist，and some were simply busts.Figure-heads were almost always brightly painted.
The best of the figure-head carvers was named William Rush.He was our first real sculptor.When he was a young man he was a soldier in the Revolution and afterward was an important citizen of Philadelphia.William Rush made many figure-heads，but he also carved a life-size statue of Washington in wood.His best carving in wood is the Spirit of the Schuylkill （School’kill）River.Rush’s friends said that no greater piece of art was to be found in all the world than this statue of the Schuylkill’s Spirit.We don’t think it is as great as that now，but for a country that hadn’t had any sculptors，it was good.Later the Schuylkill statue was cast in bronze and it still stands in Fairmount Park in Philadelphia.
The next important American sculptor was Horatio Greenough.His most famous statue was of George Washington.Greenough worked on it seven years in Italy.It isnow in Washington and if you ever see it you’ll never forget it.Washington，in this statue，isn’t in his own clothes.He is dressed only in a kind of sheet，just as if he were a Greek god.Zeus was the head of the Greek gods，Washington was the head of the United States，and so Greenough carved this statue with the body of Zeus and the head of Washington.It looks very queer to us now.It was made in marble and is larger than life-size.
Born the same year as Horatio Greenough was Hiram Powers.Hiram Powers carved a statue in marble that for many years was the most famous statue by an American.It was a marble statue called “The Greek Slave.”It is a young woman with her hands bound together by a heavy chain.Powers carved the Greek Slave in Italy because good marble hadn’t been discovered in America.
Then came a sculptor named Thomas Crawford.He was given the job of making figures for the pediment or triangular space，made by the sloping roof，at one end of the new Capitol that was being built in Washington.Crawford called the figures which he made for this pediment，the Past and Present of the Republic.Sometime，I’m sure，you will make a trip to Washington.When you do，be sure to look at Crawford’s statues.They are on the Senate end of the Capitol.
While you are in Washington，you can’t help seeing the statue on the very top of the dome of the Capitol.It looks like an Indian from the ground and many people think it is supposed to be an Indian.Really it is a statue of Liberty.It also was done by Thomas Crawford.
The Capitol at Washington has had many sculptors working for it.Another of these sculptors was Randolph Rogers.You remember the Gates of Paradise by Ghiberti.Randolph Rogers made two bronze doors for the Capitol that remind us of Ghiberti’s doors for the Baptistery.There are eight small pictures in relief showing the life of Columbus.One of the reliefs shows Columbus with his hand out in front of him.The hand is just the right height to reach easily，so visitors to the Capitol always take hold of it.Then when they go home they can say，“I shook hands with Columbus.”So many people have shaken hands with Columbus that the hand has become worn and shiny.Some day the hand will be worn away altogether so you’d better hurry to shake it！
The Rogers doors were cast in bronze in Europe.The European bronze casters would not tell American sculptors how to cast in bronze，and so Americans had to find out for themselves.A sculptor named Clark Mills was asked by Congress to make a statue of General Andrew Jackson.General Jackson had been a famous fighter and twice President of the United States.He had recently died.
Making this statue was going to be a tough job for Clark Mills.The statue was to be in bronze，and no bronze statue had ever been cast in the United States.What’s more，no equestrian statue had ever been made in the United States.What’s more，the sculptor Mills had never seen an equestrian statue.What’s more，Mills had never seen GeneralJackson.But，in spite of all these things against him，Clark Mills went to work.He got bronze by melting up bronze cannon that General Jackson had captured.