User:Claudiamoon/Drafts-Bergh

Henry Bergh
Artist	John Mahoney
Year	1891 (1891)
Dimensions	270 cm (108 in)
Coordinates	43°02′20.38″N 87°58′10.11″W

Henry Bergh, is a public artwork by American artist John Mahoney, located at the Wisconsin Humane Society, which is in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States. The bronze statue portrays Henry Bergh, the father of the humane movement in the United States, holding a cane in his proper right hand and petting a dog with a bandaged paw with his proper left hand. It was created in 1891 and stands 9 feet high.

Description

Mahoney's artwork is a full length bronze portrait of Henry Bergh. He wears a frock coat, vest, pants and boots, while holding a cane and petting a wounded dog. The sculpture's granite base has the raised inscription HENRY BERGH. The right front of the base reads American Bronze Co. Chicago Illinois. There is also a circular plaque on the base that reads The Wisconsin Humane Society, as well as a U.S. seal with a ribbon and star that included a founder's mark. The circular plaque was added to the base in 1941 in honor of its 50th dedication anniversary.

Information

The Henry Bergh statue was erected in 1891 on the 25th anniversary of Bergh's founding of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. It was originally placed atop an animal watering trough in downtown Milwaukee's Market Square, near the present City Hall.

Bergh grew up an aritocrat and graduated from Columbia College in the 1830s. Following college he became a diplomat at the American Delegation in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It was during this time that he noticed the drivers' cruel treatment of horses. Once back in America he realized that Americans also mistreated their horses by requiring them to pull very heavy loads. Bergh thus traveled to England to learn about their humane society and, upon his return to America in 1866, founded the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. This was subsequently expanded in 1877 into the American Humane Association, which included both the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. The Wisconsin Humane Society was founded in 1879 with Richard D. Whitehead serving as its superintendent. Whitehead commissioned the sculpture, raising the $14,000 needed to create it. The statue was placed in the heavily trafficked Market Square on April 29, 1891 and dedicate with an elaborate ceremony that included releasing white pigeons to fly over the statue, and having a pony be the first to drink from the trough.

Location history

"The Milwaukee City Hall was built on Market Square in 1895, increasing the traffic around the Bergh monument. By 1941 few horses were seen on the streets of Milwaukee and it was decided to convert the watering trough to a flower bed." Since then it has been moved several of times. It was first moved to the Wisconsin Humane Society in 1966 when the Marshall and Isle Bank planned to build a new structure on its site. Because the statue was too heavy to transport over Milwaukee's bridges, it was taken without the watering trough. The statue has moved with the Wisconsin Humane Society as it has changed locations over the years. It currently stands in front of the Humane Society's building on West Wisconsin Avenue.

Artist

John Mahoney was born in 1855 and passed away in 1919. He began producing sculptures while working as an apprentice stonecutter in Indianapolis. Following this experience he traveled to Rome to study sculpture, and settled in Dayton, Ohio in 1880. After completing the Henry Bergh sculpture he moved to Indianapolis, where he executed many public works, including three of the four statues that stand in the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument (Indianapolis).,ref.[3]</ref>

Condition

"Treatment needed. Black pits are peppered over the entire sculpture, with black crusting alongside proper right eye and side of nose and inside areas of coattails. Two small streaks of rust run down front of bronze base. Dark streaks run down granite base."

See also

• [4], George Rogers Clark
• [5], William Henry Harrison
• [6], James Whitcomb