The Equestrian Statue Which Depicts Roosevelt On Horseback Flanked By A Native American Man And A Man Of African Descent Had Been The Focus Of Years
Crews began dismantling the controversial statue of former US president Theodore Roosevelt that has long stood outside the American Museum of Natural History on the evening of 18 January, working late into the night before removing the first part of the sculpture by crane. The following night, the rest of it was removed, leaving only its pedestal encircled by scaffolding.
The statues removal, which will be followed by a restoration of the museums entry plaza through the spring, a spokesperson for the museum told NPR, follows years of activism by groups objecting to the statues racist imagery Roosevelt, on horseback, is depicted flanked by two shirtless men, one Native American the other of African descent, on foot. As the museums website notes, the statue itself communicates a racial hierarchy that the Museum and members of the public have long found disturbing.
In June 2020, amid a nationwide reckoning with the racist attitudes enshrined in many public monuments throughout the US, AMNHat whose front door the statue had stood for around 80 years, though the site is actually controlled by New York Cityrequested that the municipality remove it. A year later, the citys Public Design Commission voted unanimously in favor of removing it.
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Royal Ontario Museum
The ROM, located at the corner of Bloor St and Queen’s Park Ave, is Canada’s largest museum. Its exhibits and galleries explore the visual arts, archaeology, the life sciences and natural history. Admission price ranges from to .The main building is open from 10am – 6pm Mon to Sat till 8pm Tues 11am-6pm on Sun. The museum is closed Dec. 25 & Jan 1. Tel: 416 586-8000 Address: 100 Queen’s Park Toronto ON M5S 2C6
Exhibits of horse-drawn vehicles, railway cars, pioneer homes are just some of the attractions which cover 25 acres. Tel: 1 905 294-4576 Fax: 1 905 294-4590 Directions: W side of Hwy 48, 2 km N of Hwy 7 Address: 9350 Hwy 48 Markham ON L3P 3J3
Hockey Hall of Fame
The hall of fame for the National Hockey League is located in BCE Place downtown Toronto. See over 100 years of hockey history. The Hockey hall of fame has lots of fun interactive games to play and is the resting place for the leagues major trophies and awards, including the Stanley Cup! Tel: 416-360-7735 , Address: 30 Yonge St. At Front St. W. Toronto, Ontario M5E 1X8 Canada
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Founded in 1793 by Lt.-Governor John Graves Simcoe to construct and guard his new capital, the fort is the birthplace of modern Toronto.Admission: Adults – ., Seniors & Students – .25, Children – .Tel: 416-392-6907, Address: 100 Garrison Road, Toronto, ON. M5V 3K9.
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Mayor Bill de Blasio announced in June 2020 that the museum had asked to remove the statue “because it explicitly depicts Black and Indigenous people as subjugated and racially inferior.”
“The City supports the Museum’s request. It is the right decision and the right time to remove this problematic statue,” he said in a statement at the time.
The announcement came amid protests over the May 2020 death of George Floyd while in police custody, which brought greater attention to statues that are associated with racial injustice, from monuments of Confederate generals to the explorer Christopher Columbus.
Last month, members of the New York City Council unanimously voted to remove a statue of Thomas Jefferson from council chambers, owing to his history as a slaveholder. The statue will be given to the New York Historical Society on a 10-year loan agreement, the New York Times reported this week.
The decision has faced opposition from historians who urged the council to keep the statue at City Hall.
ABC News’ Jason Volack contributed to this report.
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Controversial Theodore Roosevelt Statue Removed From American Museum Of Natural History
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After decades of calls for its removal, the statue of Theodore Roosevelt that has been installed in front of the American Museum of Natural History for over 80 years is now gone, dismantled piece by piece throughout the week. Roosevelt’s head and torso were removed on Tuesday night, and, on Wednesday evening, workers came for the rest.
The museum told WNYC/Gothamist, “The process, conducted with historic preservation specialists and approved by multiple New York City agencies, will include restoration of the plaza in front of the Museum, which will continue through the spring.” The removal and restoration work is estimated to cost around $2 million.
Roosevelt wasn’t the only figure featured The Equestrian Statue, as it was called, portrayed African and Native American figures appearing “to hold subservient positions” to Roosevelt. Becoming a symbol for colonialism and racism, protests around it began as far back as the 1970s, and when calls were reignited in 2017, as the country was reckoning with its racist monuments, then-Mayor Bill de Blasio formed an advisory committee to review the city’s statues.
The Roosevelt statue was defaced with red paint in 2017.
The museum is also home to another Roosevelt statue that sits inside the building on a bench, which will remain.
Teddy Roosevelt Statue Removed From American Museum Of Natural History
- Details
The controversial Theodore Roosevelt statue was quietly removed from its decades-long perch in front of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City Wednesday night by museum contractors.
The planned removal was completed around 1 a.m. Thursday morning, when a crane removed the bronze portion of the statue, museum spokesperson Scott Rohan wrote in an email to Native News Online. The remaining base of the statue will be removed throughout the week, and the restoration of the plaza will continue through the spring.
The statue, which depicts racial hierarchy, with Theodore Roosevelt on horseback flanked by a Native American man and an African-American man on either side below him, will be stored in New York as it is prepared for shipping, Rohan said. It is slated to be repurposed in a contextualized exhibit at the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in Mendora, North Dakota.
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The New York Department of Transportation required that the statues removal happen at night for safety reasons and to minimize disruption to traffic and pedestrians, Rohan wrote. These are the designated hours for this type of work.
This past November, New York City removed its Thomas Jefferson statue from City Hall, because of the former presidents history of owning slaves. According to reports at the time, work crews spent hours moving the statue, also during daytime hours.
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The Removal Of A Theodore Roosevelt Statue Is A Good First Step In Rethinking Americas Monuments
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On June 21st, the American Museum of Natural History made the clear-eyed decision to remove a racist equestrian statue of Theodore Roosevelt from its front steps. In the monument, Roosevelt towers over an indigenous man and a black man, whose roles in the bronzebeyond literalizing the myth of white supremacy through their subordinate placementare to carry Roosevelts guns. The sculptor James Earle Fraser, who completed the statue in 1939, saw the duo as guides, representing the North American and African continents and Roosevelts friendliness to all races. But an alternate allegory emerges for me: proxies for the victims of state-sanctioned violence throughout our countrys history, from the massacre at Wounded Knee to the police killing of Breonna Taylor in her own home, bear that brutalitys symbolic weight.
Whatever drove the decision to relocate the Roosevelt monument, the museum has done the right thing, on the moral grounds that its statement lays out: Our museum community has been profoundly moved by the ever-widening movement for racial justice that has emerged after the killing of George Floyd. We also have watched as the attention of the world and the country has increasingly turned to statues and monuments as powerful and hurtful symbols of systemic racism.
The Theodore Roosevelt Statue In Front Of New Yorks Museum Of Natural History Will Finally Be Removed
A controversial statue of Theodore Roosevelt will finally be moved from its current location after years of debate and one year after a formal request for its removal.
The statue debuted in 1940 and stands in front of the American Museum of Natural History in New York. It features the 26th president on horseback flanked by a Native American man on one side and an African man on the other conveying a racial hierarchy that the museum and members of the public have long found disturbing, wrote the museum in its initial removal request last June.
On Monday, the New York City Public Design Commission voted unanimously to remove the statue, marking the final step after a year of discussion.
Sam Biederman, chief of staff and assistant commissioner at NYC Parks, called the move to remove the statue incredibly rare, but the right course of action.
Though historical circumstances demonstrate that this sculpture was not erected with malice of intent, the compositional hierarchy visually supports the thematic framework of colonization and racism, he said during Mondays meeting.
Mayor Bill de Blasio supported the removal effort last year, calling it the right decision and the right time in a statement to CNN.
The American Museum of Natural History has asked to remove the Theodore Roosevelt statue because it explicitly depicts Black and Indigenous people as subjugated and racially inferior, his office said at the time.
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Eugenics At The American Museum Of Natural History
During Henry Fairfield Osborns tenure as president of the Museum from 1908 to 1933, the institution hosted two conferences on eugenics, in 1921 and 1932. Some scientists at the Museum subscribed to the erroneous theories of eugenics, and these ideas influenced the displays at the Museum at that time.
Eugenics conference at the American Museum of Natural History, 1932. The Book Worm/Alamy
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More: Roosevelt Statue To Be Removed From American Museum Of Natural History
The removal of the statue will be conducted by the museum, in coordination with the city, and will take several months, according to Ellen Futter, president of the American Museum of Natural History.
“We thank the Roosevelt family and the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library for their roles in facilitating this important work,” Futter said in a statement.
The relocation is subject to final approval by the city’s Public Design Commission.
“We are grateful to the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library for proposing a fitting new home for the Equestrian Statue,” Vicki Been, New York City’s deputy mayor for housing and economic development, said in a statement. “This long-term loan would allow an important part of the City’s art collection to be appropriately contextualized, and we look forward to continuing to work with the Library on next steps.”
Members of the Roosevelt family have voiced support for the statue’s removal and relocation.
“Rather than burying a troubling work of art, we ought to learn from it,” Theodore Roosevelt V said in a statement. “It is fitting that the statue is being relocated to a place where its composition can be recontextualized to facilitate difficult, complex, and inclusive discussions.”
The library said it plans to establish an advisory council, made up of indigenous tribal and Black communities, historians, scholars and artists, “to guide the recontextualization of the statue.”
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Roosevelt Statue To Be Removed From Museum Of Natural History
The equestrian memorial to Theodore Roosevelt has long prompted objections as a symbol of colonialism and racism.
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The bronze statue of Theodore Roosevelt, on horseback and flanked by a Native American man and an African man, which has presided over the entrance to the American Museum of Natural History in New York since 1940, is coming down.
The decision, proposed by the museum and agreed to by New York City, which owns the building and property, came after years of objections from activists and at a time when the killing of George Floyd has initiated an urgent nationwide conversation about racism.
For many, the equestrian statue at the museums Central Park West entrance has come to symbolize a painful legacy of colonial expansion and racial discrimination.
Over the last few weeks, our museum community has been profoundly moved by the ever-widening movement for racial justice that has emerged after the killing of George Floyd, the museums president, Ellen V. Futter, said in an interview. We have watched as the attention of the world and the country has increasingly turned to statues as powerful and hurtful symbols of systemic racism.
Simply put, she added, the time has come to move it.
The Fine Arts & Exhibits Special Section
- Bigger and Better: While the Covid-19 pandemic forced museums to close for months, cut staff and reduce expenses, several of them have nevertheless moved forward on ambitious renovations or new buildings.
- A Tribute to Black Artists: Four museums across the country are featuring exhibitions this fall that recognize the work of African and African American artists, signaling a change in attitude and priorities.
- New and Old: In California, museums are celebrating and embracing Latino and Chicano art and artists. And the La Brea Tar Pits & Museum is working to engage visitors about the realities of climate change.
- A Cultural Correction: After removing all references to Columbus from its collections the Denver Art Museum has embraced a new exhibition on Latin American art.
- More From the Special Section: Museums, galleries and auction houses are opening their doors wider than ever to new artists, new concepts and new traditions.
In many of those cases, the calls for removal were made by protesters who say the images are too offensive to stand as monuments to American history. The decision about the Roosevelt statue is different, made by a museum that, like others, had previously defended and preserved such portraits as relics of their time that however objectionable, could perhaps serve to educate. It was then seconded by the city, which had the final say.
A Roosevelt family member released a statement approving the removal.
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Faculty Petition Demands Nyc Theodore Roosevelt Statue Be Dismantled
The open letter calls for the halt of the statues planned move from the American Museum of Natural History to the Theodore Roosevelt National Park in 2026.
Joyce Li, Contributing WriterMar 31, 2022
More than 50 NYU faculty members signed an open letter demanding that the statue of former President Theodore Roosevelt, which stood outside the American Museum of Natural History until this past January, be permanently dismantled. The Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in North Dakota scheduled to open in 2025 plans to display the statue in 2026.
The petition, created by the activist and artist organization Decolonize This Place, argues for the statue which depicts Roosevelt on horseback towering over a Native American man and a Black man to be neither relocated nor displayed. It claims that moving the statue near the Theodore Roosevelt National Park which was created on the ancestral land of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara peoples without consulting the Nations leaders will reinforce the statues racist message.
New Yorkers cannot simply dump their toxic cultural products in other communities, the petition reads. The city should reject the transfer of its undesirable waste elsewhere. In this case, the monuments bronze content could be melted down or recycled for a better purpose or simply disposed of.
The American Museum of Natural History and the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library did not respond to requests for comment.
Contact Joyce Li at
The Other Theodore Roosevelt Statue At The American Museum Of Natural History: A More Fitting Tribute To The Conservation President
Theodore Roosevelt in the AMNH
The American Museum of Natural History in New York recently arranged for the removal of the controversial equestrian statue of Theodore Roosevelt from the front of the museum, where it had stood since 1940. The decision to remove the statue came about in response to charges that the statue reflects racist and colonial values. Given all the national publicity related to this event, the public could easily conclude that Roosevelt’s special connection to the museum is no longer being honored, but such is not the case.
The museum still has a bronze sculpture of Roosevelt on display in its Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Hall. This bronze sculpture depicts Roosevelt as a real person sitting on a bench with room for visitors to sit beside him.
These two statues differ dramatically in how they represent Roosevelt. Designed in 1939 by James Earle Fraser, the equestrian monument depicts Roosevelt as if he were a colonial ruler. He looks larger than life and a bit aloof as he sits astride his horse, flanked by African- and Native-American men walking a step or two behind him.
Roosevelt is sometimes described as the conservation president, and the sculpture of him sitting in the middle of the American Museum of Natural History celebrates this side of President Roosevelt.
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