The Georgia Volunteer or the Spanish War Soldier statue at Forsyth Park in the city of Savannah, Georgia, USA
At the southern entrance to Forsyth Park, on Park Avenue, stands “The Hiker,” also known as the Georgia Volunteer or the Spanish War Soldier. It is dedicated to the Georgia Volunteers who fought in the Spanish-American War of 1898. Although the monument honors soldiers from across the state, Savannah was chosen as its location because it sent more men than any other Georgia city. Savannah, incidentally, also served as one of several embarkation camps for soldiers going to and returning from the war. Savannah’s Hiker was dedicated in 1931. In contrast to the city’s other memorials, the statue is not a one-off commission. In fact, an estimated 50 copies of the monument exist across the United States. The statue was first created in the early years of the 20th century by Theodora Alice Ruggles Kitson (1871-1932), a native of Massachusetts. Kitson, a noted female sculptor at a time when women were rarely accepted as serious artists, was the creator of several war memorials, of which The Hiker is probably the best known. The original copy of the statue was unveiled in 1906, at the University of Minnesota. It depicts a soldier in period uniform appropriate for the tropics, carrying a Krag-Jørgensen rifle, used by the United States army as its standard rifle from the mid-1890s to 1903. The figure is based on a real-life Spanish-American War veteran: Leonard Sefing, Jr of Allentown, Pennsylvania, who was selected by means of a national contest. It is named for the term veterans of the Spanish-American and Philippine-American Wars used to describe themselves, a reference to the long distances the soldiers were required to walk over the difficult terrain of Cuba and the Philippine islands. Another version of the Hiker statue exists, created around the same time as Kitson’s by Allen George Newman. Likewise designed to honor the soldiers of the Spanish-American and Philippine-American wars, it proved less popular than Kitson’s memorial, with around 20 copies known
Size: 4000px × 2667px
Location: Savannah, GA, USA
Photo credit: © Cayman / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
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