Most everyone that visits San Francisco sees this piece of public art. Two years before the Gold Rush, in 1847, Jasper O’Farrell, the first surveyor of San Francisco, created a design for the city, with Union Square as a public plaza. By the 1880s, it was a fashionable residential district, and in 1903, this towering monument was added. A monument to Admiral George Dewey’s victory at the Battle of Manila Bay during the Spanish American War. It also commemorates U.S. President William McKinley, who had been recently assassinated. The figurine at the top of the monument, “Winged Victory”, was modeled, reportedly, from the likeness of a local heiress, Alma de Bretteville Spreckels.
Designed by sculptor Robert I. Aitken and architect Newton J. Tharp, the Dewey Monument consisted of a 79-foot-tall granite shaft, surmounted by an 18-foot-high pedestal adorned with the bronzed figure “Winged Victory.” In one hand she bears a trident, the symbol of Poseidon and of naval victory, and in the other hand, a laurel wreath, also a symbol of victory. Robert Aitken has been in this blog before.
Teddy Roosevelt dedicated the Dewey Monument in 1903 – Photo Courtesy of the Bancroft Library
A wonderfully detailed history of Union Square can be found here.