The Rail Joiner

Title: The Rail Joiner
Artist: Louis Slobodkin
Date: Installed May 2000
Category: Monument
Medium: Bronze
Location: In front of the Lancaster County Justice and Law Enforcement Office on 10th and Lincoln Mall

Info:
In 1996, the Sheldon Museum Art Gallery acquired a plaster cast of a sculpture called the Ypung Lincoln by Louis Slobodkin and the right to reproduce it. In 2001, through efforts of the community, a fundraiser entitled “Pennies for Lincoln” was organized to bring the bronze statue to the entrance of the Lancaster County Justice and Law Enforcement Center. Bronze Sculpture of the young Abraham Lincoln was unveiled during the opening of the Lancaster County-City of Lincoln Government Center, honoring the sixteenth President of the United States.

The original Rail Joiner evolved from a sketching that Slobodkin designed for the New York World’s Fair competition in 1939 in which the theme was unity and would be displayed in the Federal Building in New York City. Controversy resulted Slobodkin brought his wife and his son to see it at the federal building and it wasn’t there. It was latere learned that Ed Flynn, who was the Demcratic Party boss, had ordered it destroyed when he saw that the statue had shaded his office window. When Slobodkin brought the case to court, a settlement was reached that included a commission for a bronze seven and a half foot model to be placed in the hallway of the Federal Building at the fair and copied and erected at the Department of Interior building in Washington, D.C. The Sheldon reproduction was made in 2 parts because the process, which Slobodkin used, demanded that anything greater than six feet have a center joint so it could easily move.

No attempt has ever been made to create an exact representation of Abraham Lincoln in his youth. It is a different portrayal from the strong and powerful frontiersman intent upon his work. Lincoln is tightly clenches his two fence rails, which symbolizes Lincoln’s future responsibilities as President in bringing a divided nation together. Not only did this sculpture represent the values of the 1800’s but also those of the 1930’s. The Rail Joiner depicts our nation’s people but also the idea of hard work and determination necessary for success instead of survival.

Born in Albany NY in 1903. At an early age, Slobodkin became interested in art, particularly in sculpture. He moved to New York City and studied at the Beaux Art Institute of Design for five years. He felt that sculpture should be “firmly anchored” with some building or definite space.

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