Alma Mater (Illinois sculpture)

The Alma Mater is a bronze statue by sculptor Lorado Taft, a beloved symbol of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The statue was removed from its site at the entrance to the university for restoration in 2012 and was returned to its site in the spring of 2014. The 10,000-pound statue depicts a mother-figure wearing academic robes and flanked by two attendant figures representing "Learning" and "Labor", after the University's motto "Learning and Labor." Sited at the corner of Green Street and Wright Street at the heart of campus, and the edge of Campustown, the statue is iconic for the university and a popular backdrop for student graduation photos. It is appreciated for its romantic, heraldic overtones and warmth of pose.

Description

The Alma Mater is a bronze figure of a woman in academic robes. She stands in front of a stylized throne or klismos with her arms outstretched in welcome. The attendant figure "Labor" is a male who stands to her proper right and wears a blacksmith's apron. At his feet lies a sheaf of papers. The proper left figure "Learning" is a female robed a classical gown with a sun bas-relief on front. Learning and Labor extend their hands in a handshake over the throne. The work stands approximately 13-feet tall. The granite base carries three inscriptions:

Alma Mater (New York sculpture)

Alma Mater is a sculpture of the goddess Athena by Daniel Chester French which is located on the steps leading to the Low Memorial Library on the Morningside Heights campus of Columbia University in Manhattan, New York City. Sculpted in 1903 and installed in 1904, it was donated in memory of alumnus Robert Goelet of the Class of 1860 by his wife, Harriette W. Goelet.Alma Mater The statue has become a symbol of the university.

An owl is hidden in the folds of Alma Mater's cloak near her left leg, a symbol of knowledge and learning, and college superstition has it that the first member of the incoming class to find the owl will become class valedictorian. The legend at another time was that any Columbia student who found the owl on his first try would marry a girl from Barnard.

In 1962 the statue was gilded, but the gilding was removed after protests. In the 1960s and 70s, the radical group the Weather Underground planned to blow up the statue, but these plans were shelved after the group managed to blow much of itself up inside a Greenwich Village row house instead.

Illinois

Illinois (ⁱ/ˌɪlᵻˈnɔɪ/ IL-i-NOY) is a state in the midwestern region of the United States. It is the 5th most populous state and 25th largest state in terms of land area, and is often noted as a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal, timber, and petroleum in the south, Illinois has a diverse economic base and is a major transportation hub. The Port of Chicago connects the state to other global ports from the Great Lakes, via the Saint Lawrence Seaway, to the Atlantic Ocean, as well as the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River, via the Illinois River. For decades, O'Hare International Airport has been ranked as one of the world's busiest airports. Illinois has long had a reputation as a bellwether both in social and cultural terms and politics.

Although today the state's largest population center is around Chicago in the northern part of the state, the state's European population grew first in the west, with French Canadians who settled along the Mississippi River, and gave the area the name, Illinois. After the American Revolutionary War established the United States, American settlers began arriving from Kentucky in the 1810s via the Ohio River, and the population grew from south to north. In 1818, Illinois achieved statehood. After construction of the Erie Canal increased traffic and trade through the Great Lakes, Chicago was founded in the 1830s on the banks of the Chicago River, at one of the few natural harbors on southern Lake Michigan.John Deere's invention of the self-scouring steel plow turned Illinois' rich prairie into some of the world's most productive and valuable farmlands, attracting immigrant farmers from Germany and Sweden. Railroads carried immigrants to new homes, as well as being used to ship their commodity crops out to markets.

Illinois (Brett Eldredge album)

Illinois is the second studio album by American country music artist Brett Eldredge. It was released on September 11, 2015 via Atlantic Records Nashville. Its lead single, "Lose My Mind", was released to country radio on May 4, 2015. Eldredge co-wrote every song, and produced the album with Ross Copperman and Brad Crisler.

Critical reception

Giving it 4 out of 5 stars, Stephen Thomas Erlewine praised the album's R&B influences, saying that "Such soulfulness and sly stylistic diversity were largely absent on Bring You Back, a quite pleasing set of by-the-books radio country, and it certainly enlivens Illinois, but not at the expense of strong songs."

Commercial performance

Illinois entered the US Billboard 200 chart at number 3, selling 51,000 equivalent units in the week ending September 17 (including 44,000 traditional album sales). This marks the largest-selling week for an album in Eldredge's career, passing Bring You Back (2013), which sold 21,000 units in the first week on chart. In the second week it sold an additional 9,500 copies. As of January 2016, the album has sold 107,400 copies domestically.

Illinois (disambiguation)

Illinois is a state in the United States.

Illinois may also refer to:

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