24-Foot-Tall Gaudy Gold Statue

Chicago, Illinois

"The Republic," also known as The Golden Lady or Big Mary, is a giant allegorical woman in a neoclassical Beaux-Arts style. A 65-foot-tall plaster version stood at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair at the "Court of Honor." The wreath in her hair was lit with light bulbs. She was seen as Chicago's answer to New York's Statue of Liberty.

The Fair closed and Big Mary was reduced to plaster dust, but not forgotten. 25 years later a permanent, one-third scale bronze version of the statue was made in France, and on May 11, 1918, it was placed on the site formerly occupied by the Fair's administration building. The Golden Lady is gilded in real gold.

Sculptor Daniel Chester French went on to make the big Abe Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial.