Unveiling ceremony for the statue of John Carroll at the main entrance to Georgetown University

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Creator

Unknown

Repository

DigitalGeorgetown

Georgetown University Archives, Booth Family Center for Special Collections, Washington, D.C.

Contributor

Georgetown College (1789-1815)

Georgetown University

Description

Fund raising for the bronze statue of John Carroll, the founder of Georgetown University, began in 1909. A grand unveiling ceremony was planned for May 4, 1912. Chief Justice Edward Douglass White, who had been a student at Georgetown from 1857 to 1860, was to make the presentation speech and Cardinal Gibbons, Attorney General George F. Wickersham who was representing President Taft, Speaker of the House Champ Clark, and Baron Hengelmuller, Ambassador from Austria-Hungary and Dean of the Diplomatic Corps, were also slated to speak. However, after invitations had been sent out, the foundry casting the statue notified the university that it would not be ready in time. Not wanting to postpone the ceremony, Georgetown officials ordered a plaster cast of the statue, which was painted brown and duly unveiled in front of thousands. In 1940, Brother James Harrington, who was in charge of workmen on the campus in 1912, recalled that: 'Weeks later, in the dead of night, today's bronze statue was substituted for the spurious one and no one was the wiser.'

Permanent Link

http://hdl.handle.net/10822/554462

Date

1912-05-04

Rights

Rights Note

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