This Week in History: Gutzon Borglum’s monumental masterpiece
- ANTONE PIERUCCI
- Posted On
It was originally just supposed to depict heroes of the American West – Red Cloud, Buffalo Bill Cody and Lewis and Clarke. But then Gutzon Borglum was tapped for the position of artist.
In reality, the project was a regional solution to a regional problem. You see, according to state historian Doane Robinson, the awe and splendor of the Black Hills of South Dakota were quick to wear off. “Tourists soon get fed up on scenery unless it has something of special interest connected with it to make it impressive,” he said.
Spoken like a historian and not a naturalist, to be sure.
Although many modern lovers of the great outdoors might disagree with Robinson today, back in the 1920s Americans loved to imprint their presence on the natural world. What better way to do that than carve American heroes into the sheer granite cliff of an imposing mountain?
The ambitious sculptor, Gutzon Borglum, full-heartedly agreed. When Robinson first approached Borglum about the project of Mt. Rushmore in 1924, the sculptor was working on another monumental sculpture in Georgia. Funded by the Stone Mountain Monumental Association, the artist had been commissioned to carve the leaders of the Confederacy onto the stone face of a Georgia mountain. But he was having some creative differences with the association.
Borglum’s vision was as monumental as his artwork and he was becoming fed up with the penny-pinching frugality of the association. They simply wanted him to depict Robert E. Lee, General Stonewall Jackson and maybe one or two other iconic figures – that’s all they could afford. Borglum, on the other hand, envisioned an entire stone army marching forth out of the sheer face of the cliff.
Robinson’s invitation to the Black Hills therefore came at a propitious moment for Borglum. He was already looking for an exit strategy and when he first walked in the shadows of the towering, precipitous South Dakota mountains, he saw the potential for a canvas suitable to the size of his vision. Here, he could make art on a grand scale. It took traipsing around the mountains to finally find the site fit for his masterpiece: Mt. Rushmore, named after an attorney who assessed mining claims in the area in the 1880s.
Having already worked out the logistics of sculpting on such a large scale, Borglum was eager to get to work on this new project. But, once again there was that pesky need for money. Mount Rushmore was part of federal land, but with the help of Robinson and other well-connected supporters, Borglum was able to get the mountain set aside for his project. Carving finally began on Oct. 4, 1927, and after wooing President Coolidge with the audacity of his vision and an invitation to the site, Borglum and team finagled federal funding a few years later.
With the funding secured, Borglum could now devote himself to his work. He pretty quickly vetoed Robinson’s earlier plan to depict only western heroes.
“I want to create a monument so inspiring that people from all over America will be drawn to come and look and go home better citizens,” said Borglum, in 1927.
For such a monument, the subject matter would have to be national in scope. So, he envisioned the monument depicting the first 150 years of America’s history, summed up in four presidents: Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Roosevelt.
That was not all, of course. The ambitious sculptor had also envisioned a grand staircase, built from the rubble blasted from the mountain, to climb from the base to just behind the President’s heads. There, a Hall of Records would hold the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, a record of American history, information about the four presidents and an explanation for why Mount Rushmore was built.
The only reason he wasn’t able to sculpt the presidents down to their waists was because of an impenetrable layer of mica schist. So, he had to resign himself to six-story tall visages.
In the end, Borglum’s grand plans were cut to size by reality. The first blow came when the artist himself died in 1941 at the age of 73. Although his son, Lincoln, took over operations of the great monument, America’s impending entry into World War II forestalled any additional work on the site, and construction was ended on Mt. Rushmore, with the monument declared complete, as is, on October 31, 1941.
Although the ultimate scope of his plan was never realized, any visitor to Mt. Rushmore today can attest to the awe and majesty of what Borglum was able to accomplish.
Antone Pierucci is curator of history at the Riverside County Park and Open Space District and a freelance writer whose work has been featured in such magazines as Archaeology and Wild West as well as regional California newspapers.