Statue of Alexander von Humboldt (Chicago)
statue in Chicago, Illinois, United States
The Alexander von Humboldt statue is a monumental statue in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Located in Humboldt Park, a major urban park in the Humboldt Park neighborhood, the statue depicts Alexander von Humboldt, a Prussian polymath and the park's namesake. The statue was dedicated in 1892.
History
The park and surrounding neighborhood were named in honor of Alexander von Humboldt, a Prussian polymath who, among other things, made numerous scientific voyages throughout the Americas during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Despite never having visited Chicago during any of his journeys, he became the park's namesake in 1869. According to Chicago's NPR affiliate, the name was chosen due to "ethnic politics", as German Americans made up a significant portion of the neighborhood's population and were considered a growing voting bloc in the politics of Chicago. The monument was paid for by Francis Dewes, a German-born brewer who is also known for the Francis J. Dewes House in Chicago.
The statue was dedicated on October 16, 1892. The unveiling ceremony, which saw speeches given in English, German, and Swedish, attracted approximately 20,000 spectators. The bronze figure of Humboldt was sculpted by a German sculptor named Felix Görling and was cast in the Gladenbeck foundry in Berlin.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 11, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q99539202. Authority coordinates are 41.906, -87.701. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1892 and 1869.
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This entry incorporates text from “Statue of Alexander von Humboldt (Chicago)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.