Helen Adams Keller was an American author, disability rights advocate, political activist and lecturer. Born in West Tuscumbia, Alabama, she lost her sight and her hearing after a bout of illness when she was 19 months old. She then communicated primarily using home signs until the age of seven, when she met her first teacher and life-long companion Anne Sullivan. Sullivan taught Keller language, including reading and writing. After an education at both specialist and mainstream schools, Keller attended Radcliffe College of Harvard University and became the first deafblind person in the United States to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree.
Jabez Lamar Monroe Curry was an American Democratic politician from Alabama who served in the state legislature and US Congress. He also served as an officer of the Confederate States Army in the American Civil War. He was a slave owner and supported the Southern cause.
The National Statuary Hall is a chamber in the United States Capitol devoted to sculptures of prominent Americans. The hall, also known as the Old Hall of the House, is a large, two-story, semicircular room with a second story gallery along the curved perimeter. It is located immediately south of the Rotunda. The meeting place of the U.S. House of Representatives for nearly 50 years (1807–1857), after a few years of disuse it was repurposed as a statuary hall in 1864; this is when the National Statuary Hall Collection was established. By 1933, the collection had outgrown this single room, and a number of statues are placed elsewhere within the Capitol.
The National Statuary Hall Collection in the United States Capitol is composed of statues donated by individual states to honor persons notable in their history. Limited to two statues per state, the collection was originally set up in the old Hall of the House of Representatives, which was then renamed National Statuary Hall. The expanding collection has since been spread throughout the Capitol and its Visitor's Center.
The Father Damien Statue, also called the Saint Damien of Molokaʻi Statue, is the centerpiece of the entrance to the Hawaiʻi State Capitol and the Hawaiʻi State Legislature in Honolulu, Hawaiʻi. A second bronze cast is displayed in the National Statuary Hall Collection in the United States Capitol, along with the Kamehameha Statue. The landmark memorializes the famous Hawaiʻi Catholic Church priest from Belgium who sacrificed his life for the lepers of the island of Molokaʻi. Father Damien is considered one of the preeminent heroes of Hawaiʻi, and was canonized by Pope Benedict XVI on October 11, 2009. Cast in bronze, the statue depicts Father Damien in his later years after being diagnosed with the disease of those he attended. Much attention was given to the recreation of the disfiguring scars on the priest's face and his arm hanging from a sling.
The United States Capitol Visitor Center (CVC) is a large underground addition to the United States Capitol complex which serves as a gathering point for up to 4,000 tourists and an expansion space for the U.S. Congress. It is located below the East Front of the Capitol and its plaza, between the Capitol building and 1st Street East. The complex contains 580,000 square feet (54,000 m2) of space below ground on three floors. The overall project's budget was $621 million.
The United States Capitol crypt is the large circular room filled with forty neoclassical Doric columns directly beneath the United States Capitol rotunda. It was built originally to support the rotunda as well as offer an entrance to Washington's Tomb. It currently serves as a museum and a repository for thirteen statues of the National Statuary Hall Collection.
The Hall of Columns is a more than 100-foot-long (30 m) hallway lined with 28 fluted columns in the south wing extension of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. It is also the gallery for 18 statues of the National Statuary Hall Collection.
Edmund Kirby Smith is a bronze sculpture commemorating the Confederate officer of the same name by C. Adrian Pillars that was installed in the United States Capitol Visitor Center as part of the National Statuary Hall Collection from 1922 to 2021. The statue was gifted by the state of Florida in 1922.
Barry Goldwater is a bronze sculpture depicting American politician and businessman of the same name by Deborah Copenhaver Fellows, installed at the United States Capitol's National Statuary Hall, in Washington, D.C., as part of the National Statuary Hall Collection. The statue was donated by the U.S. state of Arizona in 2015 and replaced a statue of John Campbell Greenway, which the state of Arizona gifted to the collection in 1930.
Kamehameha I is a bronze sculpture depicting the founder and first ruler of the Kingdom of Hawaii of the same name by Thomas Ridgeway Gould, installed at the United States Capitol Visitor Center's Emancipation Hall, in Washington, D.C., as part of the National Statuary Hall Collection. A replica of the statue was given as a gift by the U.S. state of Hawaii in 1969.
William Borah is a bronze sculpture depicting the American politician of the same name by Bryant Baker, installed in the United States Capitol Visitor Center's Emancipation Room, in Washington, D.C., as part of the National Statuary Hall Collection. The statue was gifted by the U.S. state of Idaho in 1947.
The National Statuary Hall Collection holds statues donated by each of the United States, portraying notable persons in the histories of the respective states. Displayed in the National Statuary Hall and other parts of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C., the collection includes two statues from each state, except for Virginia which currently has one, making a total of 99.
Jabez Lamar Monroe Curry is a marble sculpture depicting the American politician and diplomat of the same name by Dante Sodini. The statue was gifted to the National Statuary Hall Collection from the state of Alabama in 1908, but was replaced by one depicting Helen Keller in 2009, and relocated to Samford University, where he had served as president from 1865 to 1868. In 2018, Samford returned the statue to the Alabama Department of Archives and History.
The sculptor David McGary has created a standing statue of Chief Washakie, leader of the Shoshone people, in multiple versions, as well as an equestrian statue of the same subject.
Jack Swigert, or John L. "Jack" Swigert, Jr., is a bronze sculpture depicting the astronaut of the same name by George and Mark Lundeen, installed in the United States Capitol Visitor Center's Emancipation Hall, in Washington, D.C., as part of the National Statuary Hall Collection. The statue was donated by the U.S. state of Colorado in 1997. A duplicate of the statue is present in Concourse B of Denver International Airport.
John Hanson is a bronze statue by Richard E. Brooks of Founding Father John Hanson, installed in the United States Capitol, in Washington, D.C., as part of the National Statuary Hall Collection. It is one of two statues donated by the state of Maryland.
Marcus Whitman is a 4/3 life-size bronze sculpture by Avard Fairbanks that depicts the American physician, missionary and frontiersman Dr. Marcus Whitman striding resolutely into the future, holding a Bible in one hand and saddlebags and a scroll in the other hand. It was gifted by the U.S. state of Washington to the United States Capitol's National Statuary Hall, in Washington, D.C., as part of the National Statuary Hall Collection and was unveiled and dedicated there on May 22, 1953.
A colossal bust of Abraham Lincoln was made by Gutzon Borglum and completed in 1908. The original marble sculpture is installed in the United States Capitol crypt, in Washington, D.C. Reproductions cast in bronze are installed in several other locations, including the Lincoln Tomb in Springfield, Illinois.
There are several works of art in the United States Capitol honoring former leaders of the Confederate States of America and generals in the Confederate States Army, including seven statues in the National Statuary Hall Collection, busts and portraits.
