Existing comment:
Columbia, 1860s
This figure decorated the pilothouse of the Hudson River side-wheel steamboat Mary Powell for more than a quarter-century. "Columbia" was widely recognized as the female personification of the United States. The name derived from the Latin for "land of Columbus." By 1920 the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor replaced Columbia as the symbol of America, welcoming waves of immigrants to new lives in a new homeland. |