| Washington Square Park | |
|---|---|
 Washington Square Park in Rochester, New York | |
  Location of Washington Square Park within New York state | |
| Type | Urban park |
| Coordinates | 43°09′12″N77°36′19″W / 43.1534°N 77.6053°W |
| Created | 1817 |
| Operated by | Monroe County |
| Open | All year |
Washington Square Park is an urban park in Rochester, New York. It contains the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument, erected in 1892. [1]
It was formerly known as Johnson's Square. [2] The land for the park was donated to the public by Elisha Johnson in 1817. [3]
On 1 August 1848, it was the site of a public address by Frederick Douglass. [4] Douglass also spoke there in 1852. [2]
In 1892, U.S. President Benjamin Harrison spoke at the dedication of the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument, without mentioning slavery, despite Frederick Douglass's presence next to the podium. [5]
Austin Steward wrote in his Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman that numerous Black Americans celebrated the end of slavery in New York in Johnson's Square on July 5.[ when? ] [6] [7]
In 2017, the Washington Square Park Neighborhood Association received a $15,000 grant to develop a new Master Plan for the park. [8]
An Austrian cannon captured by the Italian army during the Battle of Vittorio Veneto in World War I was given as a gift to Rochester in 1921 by the Italian government. [9] [8] The cannon was given as a symbol of the patriotism of the large Italian immigrant population in Rochester at the time. [9] At least 1,400 Rochester residents Italian descent fought in the war. [8] The cannon was restored and rededicated in 2017 in time for the centenary of World War I. [9]
Frederick Douglass was an American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. After escaping from slavery in Maryland, he became a national leader of the abolitionist movement in Massachusetts and New York, during which he gained fame for his oratory and incisive antislavery writings. Accordingly, he was described by abolitionists in his time as a living counterexample to enslavers' arguments that enslaved people lacked the intellectual capacity to function as independent American citizens. Northerners at the time found it hard to believe that such a great orator had once been enslaved. It was in response to this disbelief that Douglass wrote his first autobiography.
Austin Steward was an African-American abolitionist and author. He was born enslaved in Virginia then moved at age 7 with the Helm household to New York State in 1800. The household settled in the town of Bath, New York, in 1803. He escaped slavery at about age 21, settling in Rochester, New York, and then Canada. His autobiography, Twenty-Two Years a Slave, was published in 1857.
Caspar Buberl was an American sculptor. He is best known for his Civil War monuments, for the terra cotta relief panels on the Garfield Memorial in Cleveland, Ohio, and for the 1,200-foot (370 m)-long frieze on the Pension Building in Washington, D.C.
The North Star was a nineteenth-century anti-slavery newspaper published from the Talman Building in Rochester, New York, by abolitionist Frederick Douglass. The paper commenced publication on December 3, 1847, and ceased as The North Star in June 1851, when it merged with Gerrit Smith's Liberty Party Paper to form Frederick Douglass' Paper. At the time of the Civil War, it was Douglass' Monthly.
Lincoln Park is the largest urban park located in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Washington, D.C. It was known historically as Lincoln Square. From 1862 to 1865, it was the site of the largest hospital in Washington, DC: Lincoln Hospital.
Life and Times of Frederick Douglass is Frederick Douglass's third autobiography, published in 1881, revised in 1892. Because of the emancipation of American slaves during and following the American Civil War, Douglass gave more details about his life as a slave and his escape from slavery in this volume than he could in his two previous autobiographies. It is the only one of Douglass's autobiographies to discuss his life during and after the Civil War, including his encounters with American presidents such as Lincoln and Garfield, his account of the ill-fated "Freedman's Bank", and his service as the United States Marshall of the District of Columbia. Fredrick Douglass shed light on what life was like as an enslaved person. Although it is the least studied and analyzed, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass allows readers to view his life as a whole.
The Emancipation Memorial, also known as the Freedman's Memorial or the Emancipation Group is a monument in Lincoln Park in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Washington, D.C. It was sometimes referred to as the "Lincoln Memorial" before the more prominent so-named memorial was dedicated in 1922.
Clinton Square is an intersection in downtown Syracuse, New York, United States. The square was the original town center and first came into existence in the early 19th century where roadways from north and south convened. With the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825 the intersection was further transformed. During the 19th century, the square was a marketplace that also hosted several public events, including an 1870 public barbecue reportedly attended by 20,000 people.
Anna Murray Douglass was an American abolitionist, member of the Underground Railroad, and the first wife of American social reformer and statesman Frederick Douglass, from 1838 to her death.
Soldiers and Sailors Monument is a war monument in Monument Square, at Broadway and 2nd Street in Troy, New York, United States. It honors those from Rensselaer County who served in the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812 and the American Civil War.
"What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" was a speech delivered by Frederick Douglass on July 5, 1852, at Corinthian Hall in Rochester, New York, at a meeting organized by the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society. In the address, Douglass states that positive statements about perceived American values, such as liberty, citizenship, and freedom, were an offense to the enslaved population of the United States because they lacked those rights. Douglass referred not only to the captivity of enslaved people, but to the merciless exploitation and the cruelty and torture that slaves were subjected to in the United States.
The Douglass family is a prominent American family originating from Cordova, Maryland, United States. It was founded by the politician and activist Frederick Douglass.
Frederick Douglass Jr. was the second son of Frederick Douglass and his wife Anna Murray Douglass. Born in New Bedford, Massachusetts, he was an abolitionist, essayist, newspaper editor, and an official recruiter of colored soldiers for the United States Union Army during the American Civil War.
Barbara Ann Steward was a teacher, lecturer, and outspoken advocate against slavery and for industrial education for people of color. She was the daughter of the famous abolitionist Austin Steward.
A statue of Frederick Douglass sculpted by Sidney W. Edwards, sometimes called the Frederick Douglass Monument, was installed in Rochester, New York in 1899 after it was commissioned by the African-American activist John W. Thompson. According to Visualising Slavery: Art Across the African Diaspora, it was the first statue in the United States that memorialized a specific African-American person.
The Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument is a monument in Washington Square Park in Rochester, New York. Designed by Leonard Wells Volk, it was erected in 1892. At the top of the 42-foot monument stands a bronze figure of Abraham Lincoln astride a granite shaft. Four bronze figures symbolize the infantry, cavalry, marines, and artillery. The panels of the monument depict key moments of the American Civil War: the land battles at Fort Sumter, Gettysburg, and Appomattox, and the naval battle between the USS Monitor and CSA Virginia. The total cost of the monument was $26,000.
The Emancipation Memorial, also known as the Freedman's Memorial or the Emancipation Group was a monument in Park Square in Boston. Designed and sculpted by Thomas Ball and erected in 1879, its sister statue is located in Lincoln Park in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Washington, D.C. The Boston statue was taken down by the City of Boston on December 29, 2020, following a unanimous vote from the Boston Art Commission on June 30 to remove the memorial.
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