 She is flanked by a blacksmith sitting on an anvil, who represents industry; a sheaf of wheat, which represents agriculture; and a homecoming of soldiers, whose lack of headgear symbolically illustrates the end of the war.At her feet sits the freed African American male figure, whose positioning reflects a common trope in nineteenth-century American sculpture that depicts African Americans kneeling in gratitude while holding broken manacles or discarded whips.These post-Reconstruction era of the United States depictions of formerly enslaved people, often shown with uncertain, upward gazes aimed toward their liberators, minimized African American efforts and sacrifices in obtaining freedom and instead interpreted the Emancipation Proclamation as an act of white benevolence.