United States Capitol's Statue Of Freedom was placed atop the Dome on this day in 1863.

[Brother Buzz]

1. Philip Reid, an enslaved man forged the Statue of Freedom but was a free man when it was installed.

Built By Slaves: A Capitol History Lesson

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MARTIN: And does Freedom have a connection to the story of African-Americans?

Mr. BEUTTLER: That's one of the most exciting stories in the history of the Capitol because what you have is an American sculptor, Thomas Crawford, who was there over in France was given the commission. And he made a plaster model and then shipped it over to the United States. Well, no one was able to take apart the plaster model in order to forge the bronze statue except for one man by the name of Philip Reid.

Philip Reid was an enslaved African-American owned by Clark Mills of South Carolina. And that Statue of Freedom was actually raised up on December 2nd, 1863 into the top of the dome. And what's exciting is that Philip Reid was actually, by that point, a free man because in April of 1862 - April 16th is when the D.C. Emancipation Bill passed. And so Philip Reid, the slave who actually forges the Statue of Freedom, by the time it becomes to the top of this Capitol dome, he's a free man.

MARTIN: That is a great story. And I - you do wonder, is there any written record of his feelings about all this? I mean, a man working on the Statue of Freedom who was himself not free, at least at the time he began, and then became free. Do we have any sense of how he felt about that?

Mr. BEUTTLER: Yeah, we don't have any firsthand accounts of what his feelings were and the irony of an enslaved man forging the Statue of Freedom.

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