A Capitol idea: Thomas Edison to represent Ohio

July 8, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

By MARC KOVAC

COLUMBUS

Ohio-born inventor Thomas Edison was the top vote-getter among the luminaries being considered to represent the state in the statuary hall of the U.S. Capitol.

Edison received 14,261 of nearly 47,000 votes cast by residents at museums around the state from late March through mid-June. The Wright Brothers were second with 13,363 votes, followed by Olympic gold medalist Jesse Owens and civil-rights leader William McCulloch.

“The response to the popular vote was extraordinary,” Burt Logan, executive director of the Ohio Historical Society, said in a released statement. “Ohioans of all ages and from every region of the state took this opportunity to tell state legislators who they want to represent the state in National Statuary Hall and Thomas Edison, world-famous inventor born in Milan, Ohio, is the people’s choice.”

A lawmaker panel will consider the results before making a final recommendation, which must be approved by the Ohio Senate and House.

Federal legislation enacted about 10 years ago allows states to replace older statues on display in the Capitol with new ones.

Ohio currently is represented by President James A. Garfield who was assassinated in 1881. His statue has been in place since 1886.

The other statue is former one-term Governor and Congressman William Allen, who died in 1879. He is credited with coining the political slogan “Fifty-Four/Forty or Fight.”

Allen also is viewed as a supporter of slavery, something that prompted lawmakers in 2006 to vote to replace his statue with someone more representative of today’s Ohioans.

A state legislative panel considered more than 90 famous Ohioans, selecting 10 as finalists. The latter included congressman and abolitionist James Ashley, President and Civil War General Ulysses S. Grant, space shuttle astronaut Judith Resnik, oral-polio-vaccine creator Albert Sabin, abolitionist and author Harriet Beecher Stowe, and women’s suffragist Harriet Taylor Upton, who spent most of her life in Warren.