Looking over the town of Ashland is an 8 foot tall, 1,260lb bronze statue of Whistlers Mother, the only statue of it's kind. It sits on a 3 ton granite slab, engraved with a line from a Samuel Taylor Coolidge Poem, "A Mother Is the Holiest Thing Alive".
The statue was placed by the Ashland Boys Association, a group of "boys" who had taken jobs outside of the area, but still had a strong attachment to the town they called home. During the Great Depression, the club raised $6000, during the depression, for this statue.
Those who "subscribed" (donated towards the cost of the statue) received a coin with the likeness of Whistlers Mother on it.
In 1988, for the 50th Anniversary of the statue, 2,000 commemorative coins were sold at $2 a piece, and an additional 2,000 pins were sold at $1 a piece.
The statue was installed as part of the Works Projects Administration.
The statue was dedicated at the 35th reunion of the Ashland Boys Association, in September of 1938. The festivities opened Saturday evening with a mummers parade. On Sunday, 10,000 people attended the unveiling of the Whistlers Mother statue.
The statue was unveiled on September 4th 1938, by Ashland's two oldest mothers - Mary Wilson, age 91, who had 4 children and Elizabeth Schmidt, age 88, had 8 children.
Arrangement In Grey And Black, By James McNeill Whistler
The Painting, an oil by James McNeill Whistler, is named Arrangement In Grey And Black. The woman in the painting is Whistlers Mother, Anna McNeill Whistler. Painted in 1871, France purchased it in 1891, and it is held at the Musee d'Orsay in Paris.
Commonly referred to as Whistlers Mother, it is one of the most famous works by an American Artist outside of the United States. It is frequently described as a Victorian Mona Lisa, and is thought of as an American icon.
The Base That holds The Whistlers Mother Statue is inscribed with :
"A Mother Is The Holiest Thing Alive"
The Inscription on the base, A Mother Is The Holiest Thing Alive, seems like a fitting tribute, as long as you read it alone, out of the context in which it was originally written. The line is taken from a poem, The Three Graves, by Samuel Taylor Coolidge, part of the Sextants Tale. The mother featured in the tale is hardly one to be memorialized in a statue. In the poem, a gentleman named Edward comes to court Mary. Mary's mother supervises the courtship, and decides she would like to have Edward for herself, not for her daughter. When Edward rebukes the mother, with laughter at the absurdity of it, the mother curses both him, and her own daughter.
Beneath the foulest mother's curse
No child could ever thrive:
A mother is a mother still,
The holiest thing alive.
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