Borglum convinced Robinson that the sculpture in South Dakota should depict George Washington and Abraham Lincoln , as that would give it national, and not just local, significance.
He would later add Thomas Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt to the list, in recognition of their contributions to the birth of democracy and the growth of the United States. During a second visit to the Black Hills in August , Borglum identified Mount Rushmore as the desired site of the sculpture. Local Native Americans and environmentalists voiced their opposition to the project, deeming it a desecration of Sioux heritage as well as the natural landscape.
After President Calvin Coolidge traveled to the Black Hills for his summer vacation, the sculptor convinced the president to deliver an official dedication speech at Mount Rushmore on August 10, ; carving began that October. To carve the four presidential heads into the face of Mount Rushmore, Borglum utilized new methods involving dynamite and pneumatic hammers to blast through a large amount of rock quickly, in addition to the more traditional tools of drills and chisels.
Some workers removed around , tons of rock from Mount Rushmore, which still remains in a heap near the base of the mountain. Though it was arduous and dangerous work, no lives were lost during the completion of the carved heads. On July 4 , , a dedication ceremony was held for the head of Washington. Gutzon Borglum died in March , and it was left to his son Lincoln to complete the final details of Mount Rushmore in time for its dedication ceremony on October 31 of that year.
The National Park Service, which maintains Mount Rushmore, records upwards of 2 million visitors every year. Meanwhile, many Sioux activists have called for the monument to be taken down, even as they continue to protest what they view as illegal U. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us!
Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present. On Halloween in , the year effort to carve the enormous profiles of four American presidents—George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt—into the southeastern face of Mount Rushmore was finally completed. However, one little-known, but The faces of four U. So while Mount Mount Vernon is the former plantation estate and burial location of George Washington, the American Revolutionary War general and the first President of the United States, his wife Martha and 20 other Washington family members.
The current estate—which is open to Theodore Roosevelt, who had overseen the construction of the Panama Canal, was a symbol of economic growth. And Abraham Lincoln was selected for having fought to preserve the nation in the Civil War. Over the next 16 years, Borglum wrangled with the federal government about funding and control of Mount Rushmore—which he never technically completed.
Borglum hoped to carve the presidents down to their waists and chisel a description of the memorial next to them. S historical artifacts. In , Borglum began blasting a foot tunnel into the mountain for his Hall of Records.
Worried about funding as war loomed in Europe, however, the U. Borglum was still refining those heads when his health began to deteriorate. He died on March 6, , leaving his son, Lincoln, to continue his work.
The project was declared finished on October 31, The tunnel that Borglum had drilled for the Hall of Records sat empty for decades until , when the National Park Service placed a titanium vault in the floor, filling it with information on Mount Rushmore, the presidents, and U. However, the filming itself sparked a controversy. The National Park Service and the U. Department of the Interior cried foul, and ultimately asked Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to remove the credit line at the end of the movie thanking them for their cooperation.
Mount Rushmore opened to the public even as the Lakota continued legal challenges. In the decades since, the memorial and its surroundings have served as a flash point for the treatment of Native Americans. Although the loss of the land was a far bigger concern for many Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho, Hill says that some indigenous people wanted the site to recognize their history, too.
Native nations have also taken issue with the way Mount Rushmore told their story—and that of U. As Sprague points out, even Lincoln was enthusiastic about western expansion and, in , dispatched U.
Related: Untangling the complex legacy of Teddy Roosevelt at the national park bearing his name. The civil rights movement of the s inspired a wave of protest among Native Americans across the country. In the summer of , protest came to Mount Rushmore when a few dozen activists from the organization United Native Americans scaled the memorial to demand the return of the Black Hills to the Lakota.
They camped atop the memorial for months—and then returned the following summer for a briefer protest that ended in their arrests.
In , the long-running legal dispute finally reached the U. Supreme Court. In the landmark United States v. But the Lakota declined the compensation and have since advocated for the return of the Black Hills instead. On July 4, , more than a hundred demonstrators gathered at a Fourth of July rally held by President Donald Trump to protest the memorial and remind attendees that it was built on stolen land. Related: How indigenous protesters helped spawn a conservation movement in British Columbia.
Forces began campaigning to add faces to Mount Rushmore while the monument was still under construction. Borglum also envisioned his work as being the perfect place to store and preserve key documents and early-American artifacts, like the Declaration of Independence, in a Hall of Records to be built behind the faces.
The original plan was to carve in granite pillars known as the Needles. However, Borglum realized that the eroded Needles were too thin to support sculpting. He chose Mount Rushmore named in for New York lawyer Charles Rushmore because it had suitable stone for carving and faced southeast with maximum exposure to the sun.
Borglum said upon seeing Mount Rushmore, "America will march along that skyline. With a site and plans made, funding for the project was the last mountain to climb. Thomas Jefferson was the next completed, with a dedication on August 30, The Abraham Lincoln figure was dedicated on September 17, , and the Teddy Roosevelt figure was dedicated was on July 2, Mount Rushmore National Memorial facilities are open year-round, seven days a week, with December 25 being the exception.
0コメント