One hundred fifty years ago today, 22 February 1858, George Washington's
birthday, Thomas Crawford's monumental equestrian statue of George
Washington was dedicated in Capital Square in Richmond. The dedication
ceremony attracted a very large crowd and was the occasion for
reaffirming Virginia's devotion to the Union in an age of increasing
sectional tensions.

For people who have not seen the statue or whose recollections of it
have decayed, this black-and-white photograph of it was displayed in the
Virginia Room at the 1939 World's Fair in New York:

http://lvaimage.lib.va.us/cgi-bin/photo.cgi/WF/12/02/021

This is one of thousands of photographs available online as part of the
digital photographic collections of the Library of Virginia. For more,
see:

http://www.lva.lib.va.us/whatwehave/photo/index.htm

Brent Tarter
The Library of Virginia
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Please visit the Library of Virginia's Web site at
http://www.lva.virginia.gov

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