Alexander Doyle
1891
Bronze, marble, and granite
This memorial bronze sculpture to Atlanta’s famous “New South” newspaper editor was originally dedicated on October 21, 1891 to 25,000 on-lookers. Henry Grady, editor of The Atlanta Constitution, was known as a champion of southern industry and agriculture in the post-Civil War period. The funds to erect the monument were generated through “public subscriptions” that were received from throughout the United States, an unprecedented tribute considering that Grady had held no office and died as an “unpretentious private citizen.”
Two bronze statues of women are sitting on benches with footstools on both sides of the base. On the foot stool is engraved: “Gorham Manufacturing Co. Founders.” The women are each holding a wreath with the inscription “This hour little needs the loyalty that is loyal to one section and yet holds the other in enduring suspicion and estrangement. Give us the broad and perfect loyalty that loves and trusts Georgia alike with Massachusetts that knows no South, no North, no East, no West; but endures with equal and patriotic love every foot of our soil, every State in our Union.” This inscription is a quotation taken from an address delivered in Boston a few days before his death in 1889.
The artist Alexander Doyle, a well-regarded sculptor from New York, has depicted Grady in an orator’s stance with two virtues seated beneath him facing north and south (credit brockman here). Born in Ohio, Doyle studied in Italy then returned to the United States to become a prominent marble and bronze sculptor of historical figures.
Marietta St. NW at Forsyth St. NW
Atlanta, GA 30303