Statue Swap: Cather Ready For Washington; Morton's Return Resurrects His Racism | Local

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Littleton Alston, an art professor at Creighton University, sculpted a 7-foot Willa Cather sculpture for the U.S. Capitol. He's shown here with one of the models of his final sculpture.

This sculpture of J. Sterling Morton, the founder of Arbor Day, was given to the National Statuary Hall Collection in the U.S. Capitol by Nebraska in 1937.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (from left), House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Steve Laravie Jr. and Judi gaiashkibos applaud the unveiling of a statue of Ponca Chief Standing Bear in Statuary Hall at the U.S. Capitol in 2019. Laravie is a great-great-great-great-grandson of Standing Bear.

Willa is still waiting to go to Washington.

And the man who will help take her there is a capable tour guide.

As a boy, Littleton Alston would wander the U.S. Capitol, run around the National Mall, wade in its reflecting pools, visit all the free museums — then bike back across East Capitol Avenue to his own neighborhood, its storefronts still burned out or boarded up from the 1968 riots after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated.

On each trip, he carried something home with him.

“It made me realize, in a concrete way, that there was a larger world. It showed me a different world; there wasn’t rats, there wasn’t garbage, there wasn’t people acting stupid.”

He’d make the trip day after day during the summer. He found himself drawn to the public artwork, particularly the statues and sculptures, like those that loomed so much larger than him in the Capitol’s Statuary Hall.

“It was like a wonderland. It opened up a world for me that my neighborhood didn’t have, that my education didn’t have. It began an education for me, really.”

And it would lead, 50 years later, to a studio in midtown Omaha, where Alston last week finished packing up the 7-foot, 500-pound Willa Cather sculpture that he brought to life.

He wrapped her in protective padding, built a plywood-and-pallet crate around her.

Now they’re both waiting for word on when he’ll get to introduce her to his childhood draw, Statuary Hall.

But there’s room for only so many statues.

The towering Cather bronze — sculpted by the first African American artist to contribute to the Statuary Hall Collection in its 160-year history — will unseat J. Sterling Morton, famous for starting Arbor Day but getting better known for his pro-slavery position.

After 85 years in the Capitol, Morton will head home to Nebraska City, in the same wooden crate that will carry Cather to Washington.

And his welcome there hasn’t been wholly warm.

Littleton Alston learned about Cather as most of America did — in junior high.

But in 2018, after the Nebraska Legislature voted to send Ponca Chief Standing Bear and Cather to Washington, and recall William Jennings Bryan and Morton, he learned even more.

Serious, scholarly research: Immersing himself in her words, and those written about her. Sensory, too: Visiting her hometown, and her childhood home, and surrounding himself with her images.

He saw parallels in their paths. They were both born in Virginia, but they both considered Nebraska their home.

Alston has taught at Creighton University since 1990, and his work is on display across the state, and the country. Charles Bessey at the state Capitol’s Hall of Fame. Bob Gibson at Werner Park in Papillion. St. Ignatius at Creighton. Martin Luther King Jr. in Illinois. He’ll soon have Gale Sayers at Omaha Central High School.

For the Cather piece, he started with drawings of the author, then smaller, three-dimensional studies sculpted in clay. Those show structure and proportion — how the statue is standing, the play of the light — but not much detail.

And then he progressed to slightly larger pieces, 2-foot maquettes, which gave him room to add finer touches, such as the tilt of her hat, or the pins she wore.

“When I get to the large size, I’m able to put a tremendous amount of detail in. I’ve worked out all of those questions in the smaller sizes.”

But he wanted more than her resemblance. He was trying to freeze the feelings and thoughts and contemplation of another artist.

“Am I capturing her? She has a very complex face. I wanted to represent her in the process of thinking and creating. You know how someone looks at you when they have an idea?”

Did he replicate the glimmer in her eye, the strength of her jaw, as he wanted to? The Willa Cather National Statuary Hall Selection Committee thought so; it approved Alston’s final version, and a Colorado foundry has since cast his Cather statue in bronze.

But she’ll remain a secret until she’s not, said committee chairman Ron Hull.

“The board wants the Washington unveiling to be an event, and that will be the first time the public will see it.”

The committee was charged with raising the roughly $200,000 to commission the statue — and found a benefactor in the late Senior U.S. District Court Judge Laurie Smith Camp, who donated most of it — and identify a new home for Morton.

The Cather group watched the Standing Bear Selection Committee begin Nebraska’s changing of its guard, installing the Ponca chief’s 9-foot statue at the Capitol and sending Bryan to his new home in Seward, in fall 2019.

But it was told 2020 was an election year, so it would likely have to wait until 2021 to move Cather to Washington. And then the pandemic paused everything. The Capitol closed to the public, and only reopened late last month.

Hull hopes Cather goes to Washington soon. They’re planning a reception for a couple of hundred people, celebrating all things Nebraska, but the dedication date isn’t up to them.

The Speaker of the House will set the schedule.

“The last word we’ve had, two weeks ago, is that it cannot happen until this fall,” Hull said. “There’s an awful lot of stuff going on in Washington, as you know.”

A bidding war broke out for William Jennings Bryan after Standing Bear replaced him in Statuary Hall.

Lincoln wanted him on Centennial Mall, but Seward won out, and he found a new home under the roof of the National Guard Museum.

But when Hull’s committee sought proposals for Morton’s new home, only Nebraska City stepped up.

It made sense, he said at the time. Morton belonged there.

He’d moved to Nebraska City in 1854 and settled in as a farmer, newspaper editor, member of the territorial legislature, territorial secretary and, later, President Grover Cleveland’s agriculture secretary.

But he became famous for launching Arbor Day in 1872. Nebraskans planted an estimated 1 million trees that first year. It became an official state holiday two years later, and has since spread to all 50 states.

Nebraska City is home to Arbor Lodge, Arbor Day Farm and Arbor Day celebrations.

The committee in Nebraska City that proposed bringing Morton home found a spot for him on the east side of the Otoe County Courthouse — the state’s oldest public building — and began raising the $5,000 cost of hauling him out of D.C.

County commissioners started getting calls and emails from those opposed to the location, given Morton’s flagrant pro-slavery and anti-Black civil rights views.

Among their concerns: It might not be a good look to plant Morton, who didn’t think Black men should be allowed to vote, that close to the building where people register to vote, said Sara Crook, a Nebraska City native, Peru State professor and member of the Cather committee.

“So to avoid a political conundrum and controversy, they looked for other locations to put the statue,” she said.

Morton’s views were held by many in the middle of the 1800s. He’s been called a man of his time. But that doesn’t mean he was right, she said. “I think he was wrong.”

The Nebraska City committee found itself needing a Plan B.

“Questions were raised, and certainly we didn’t want to have a situation where it was going to be controversial,” said member Doug Friedli.

But they didn’t want to hide that side of Morton, either, he said.

They found a new home for him at the Morton-James Library, which was paid for, and named after, Morton’s son.

It’s a good fit for a couple of reasons, he said. First, Morton will be inside, protected from the elements. But more importantly, the library will provide resources that tell the rest of his story — and not just the part about the trees.

“We’ll be able to tell all sides of his life. We’re really pleased to have that opportunity, so if people want to research various aspects of his life, it’s going to be there.”

Alston is aware of Morton’s past.

But he’d rather look forward, and talk about how his statue will elevate Nebraska’s image to those who visit the Capitol.

Cather deserves to be there, he said.

“I do think it’s poetic justice that Willa will have her day in the sun.”

Onlookers get the first glimpse of the new Standing Bear sculpture at Centennial Mall near the Nebraska State Capitol.

The sculpture of Ponca Chief Standing Bear in Lincoln is unveiled on Sunday.

Ponca Tribal Chairman Larry Wright Jr. speaks at the dedication of the Ponca Chief Standing Bear sculpture in Lincoln on Sunday.

Sculptor Benjamin Victor speaks at the dedication of his sculpture of Ponca Chief Standing Bear in Lincoln on Sunday.

Lincoln Mayor Chris Beutler speaks at the dedication of the Standing Bear at Centennial Mall near the Nebraska State Capitol on Sunday.

Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, R-Neb., speaks at the dedication of the Standing Bear sculpture at Centennial Mall in Lincoln.

Nebraska State Sen. Tom Brewer speaks at the dedication of the 11-foot statue of Ponca Chief Standing Bear in Lincoln on Sunday.

A crowd gathers for the dedication of the Standing Bear in Lincoln on Sunday.

A sculpture of Ponca Chief Standing Bear was unveiled at Centennial Mall near the State Capitol in Lincoln on Sunday. In 1877, Standing Bear and other members of the Ponca Tribe fled Indian Territory in Oklahoma, where they had been relocated by the U.S. government. The chief fought to remain on his ancestral land in Nebraska, winning a court case in Omaha that marked the first time that Native Americans were recognized as people under the law. The 11-foot statue was sculpted by Benjamin Victor of Idaho.