Cast iron “Remember Pearl Harbor” weathervane

Claude C. Ferdinand of Hawthorne, New Jersey created this unique Pearl Harbor tribute. He sent it to FDR as a gift on January 27, 1942. The iconography of Ferdinand’s weathervane links the American cause in World War II to the American Revolution. An eagle and V for Victory symbol stand at the center. They are flanked on the right by the figure of a Minuteman, immortalized in the famous statue that stands at the site of the 1775 Battle of Concord in Massachusetts. On the left a woman known as a “Molly Pitcher” operates a cannon during the 1778 Battle of Monmouth in New Jersey. MO 2005.377.