Topping the Dome

December 2, 2013 will mark the 150th anniversary of topping the Capitol Dome in Washington, DC with Thomas Crawford's sculpture, Statue of Freedom. The Capitol Dome is one of America's most iconic images. This carefully researched novel tells the story of Freedom's creator and creation. In 1835, Thomas Crawford leaves America to study sculpture in Rome under the world's premier sculptor. This true story takes him back and forth between the ancient Capitol of Rome and the new Capitol of America, Washington, D.C. Art and politics collide as his patrons in America struggle to have his work accepted by a Congress bitterly divided over the issue of slavery. Crawford would eventually create more sculpture for the Capitol than any other sculptor. With the country at war, Abraham Lincoln refuses to halt the construction of the Capitol, and Crawford's greatest work, the statue of Freedom, is placed on the Capitol Dome in the midst of the Civil War, December 2, 1863. Three other men, Charles Sumner, a staunch abolitionist, Senator, and ideologue, Clark Mills, a self-taught sculptor and opportunist, and the supervisor of construction of the Capitol, Captain Montgomery C. Meigs, an autocratic achiever, play major roles in this confrontation between art and politics and the success of Thomas Crawford. The careers of these amazing men, in their own way, mirror Crawford's during this tumultuous period leading up to the Civil War. The book includes 25 pictures.