German born Adolph A. Weinman (1870-1952) came to the United States in 1880. After being sent to the United Sates to live with a relative, he attended public schools and took a job carving mirror frames, ivory pistol grips, mother-of-pearl powder boxes and meerschaum pipes. Later he attended Cooper Union and studied with Augustus Saint-Gaudens at the Art Students' League.

Among Weinman's most prominent works that can be seen in New York are the free form Art Deco rectangular limestone sculptures at the entrances to the Bronx County Building at #851 Grand Concourse; the friezes for the facade of the Morgan Library at 37th Street and Madison Avenue; the figures of Alexander Hamilton and DeWitt Clinton on the front of the Museum of the City of New York; and the Bronze doors at the entrance to the American Academy of Arts and Letters on 155th Street which are dedicated to Mary E. Wilkins and the women writers of America. Statues and busts by Weinman are in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Weinman was widely known for his figures on the United States Supreme Court building and the Post Office Department building in Washington, D.C. as well as major works in Kentucky, Wisconsin, Missouri, and Michigan. He also designed a number of coins: US dime 1916; US half dollar 1920, 1921; and prize medals for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, 1904; the American Institute of Architects, 1907, the medal for Lifesaving on Railroads, 1906, the National Institute of Arts and Letters Gold Prize, 1909, and The Charge, 1909. Weinman was a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Letters and served as president of the American Sculptors Society for several terms.

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