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Hello and welcome to Who Are the People?
An exploration of the National Statuary Hall
Collection in the United States Capitol.
My name is Emily, and I work as a Visitor
Guide at the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center.
Today we are going to explore the statue
and the story of Samuel Adams
sent by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1876.
When people see the statue of Samuel Adams
on tour, most of the time someone will make
a reference to beer.
But the real Samuel Adams wasn’t a brewer
at all; he was a patriot.
And I like him so much that
I even named my cat after him.
Born in Boston on September 27, 1722, Samuel
Adams entered Harvard at the age of 14 and
received his degree in 1740.
There he was profoundly affected
by John Locke’s doctrine that
“every citizen is endowed with natural
rights to life, liberty, and property.”
By 1763, Adams was a member of the secret Caucus
Club, through which a small number of Boston’s
leaders controlled the decisions of the town meeting.
Two years later, John Hancock and Samuel Adams
founded the Sons of Liberty.
Adams led the opposition to the Sugar Act,
the Stamp Act, and the Townshend Acts.
In 1772, he was one of the leading forces
behind the Non- Importation Association
and the Boston Tea Party.
He initiated the Massachusetts
committee of correspondence
and drafted the Boston declaration of rights.
Adams served as a member of the state legislature,
known as the Massachusetts General Court,
and as a member of the Continental Congress
before and during the Revolution where he
voted for and signed the Declaration of Independence.
Adams returned to Boston in 1781
to serve in the state senate.
He was defeated in a bid for Congress in 1788,
but he became a member of the convention to
ratify the Constitution.
Adams also served as lieutenant governor under
John Hancock and then as governor for
three years after that.
“The Father of the American Revolution”
retired from public life in 1797.
He died in Boston on October 2, 1803.
If you’re from Massachusetts like I am,
this sculpture may look familiar.
When the artist, Anne Whitney, finished this
statue in 1876, it was put on display at the
Boston Athenaeum.
It was so popular that the city of Boston
commissioned a bronze copy.
Today that statue stands outside of Faneuil Hall,
not far from where Samuel Adams lived and worked.
If you’d like to know more about Anne Whitney
and the making of the statue, listen to the
first episode of our podcast
“Shaping History: Women in Capitol Art.”
You can find a link to it on our website visitthecapitol.gov
or anywhere you listen to podcasts.
Thank you for watching!
I hope you enjoyed learning about Samuel Adams.
To learn more about this statue or the other
statues in the National Statuary Hall Collection,
please go to visitthecapitol.gov and aoc.gov.
There you will find more information about
art, history, and government.
We hope to see you next time when we explore
another statue in our Who are the People series.
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