Larger Than Life and Forever Controversial

Mt. Rushmore sculptor Gutzon Borglum (back) shown with two unidentified stonecutters. Image courtesy of Robin Borglum Kennedy.

This Presidents’ Day, Ask Students: Who Would You Carve? And Why?

SPI recorded a family story as told by Mount Rushmore sculptor Gutzon Borglum’s granddaughter, Robin Borglum Kennedy. Robin’s account of her grandfather’s life differs in ways that are significant from other accounts. Hers is a more personal telling, centering on the man, his family, his life, and his art.

Gutzon Borglum found his place in history when he traveled with his 12-year-old son Lincoln (Robin’s father) to the Black Hills of South Dakota searching for a mountain to carve. Gutzon and Lincoln camped for two weeks in the foothills before Lincoln wrote a letter home to his mother telling her, “I think we found the mountain that Daddy is going to carve.” It is a letter that Robin keeps to this day. Such is just some of the behind-the-scenes narrative found in SPI’s recording.

Stone Mountain model.

The listener comes away from the recording understanding that only a man as brash and bold as Gutzon Borglum could have envisioned such a monumental work and that creating Mount Rushmore was, far more than most know, a family affair.

A Little Background

After being forced to leave Georgia following the Stone Mountain debacle (that’s in the recording), Gutzon was hired by South Dakota State Historian, Doane Robinson to carve the figures of Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane into rock protrusions in an area called “The Needles.” The project was imagined for no other purpose than to bring much needed tourist dollars to the state. But no, Gutzon wouldn’t hear of it - neither the place, nor the people suggested by Doane. Gutzon told Doane that the carvings needed to be of figures of national significance and that he would choose the site. Few argued with Gutzon, and while there is more to the story, that, in large part, is how Mount Rushmore came to be. Those whose likeness is carved into the monument were selected by one man, Gutzon Borglum.

Click here for a shortcut link to Robin Borglum Kennedy’s recording about her grandfather Gutzon, found in the SPI 4-12 Learning Lab.

SPI Project Prompt:

This February 22nd, make your students Gutzon Borglum for a Day

Ask them to design their own Mount Rushmore. It doesn’t matter how they do it - on paper, clay, or 3-D modeling; the choice is theirs. The only caveat: they can’t choose Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson, or Teddy Roosevelt. They have to choose four other Presidents, and they have to defend their choices.

The controversy surrounding the carving of the monument on Lakota sacred land is, of course, another way to involve students in meaningful discussion on Presidents’ Day or any day of the year.

Then take it a step further.

Workers in the early stages of constructing the Hall of Records.

Charles D'Emery

Ask students what they would include in their “Hall of Records.”

Gutzon was adamant about creating a Hall of Records on the Rushmore site with historical documents and details about the monument’s construction. He said: "You may as well drop a letter into the world’s postal service without an address or signature as to send that carved mountain into history without identification."

The Hall of Records was unfinished when Gutzon died, as was Rushmore itself, and remained so for decades. It wasn’t until August 19, 1998, that Robin, along with other members of her family, completed his dream. From her SPI recording:

 Titanium panels were carved with the history of the United States on them - with the Declaration of Independence, the Gettysburg Address, the Bill of Rights, and the history of Mount Rushmore and how it was carved.  They excavated a hole about like a coffin, six feet by six feet, and put that in the ground and then put a granite capstone on top of it.  The capstone says something that Gutzon had said, that the rain and wind will wear these away, but what they stand for will never disappear. There was a big ceremony. About one hundred of us climbed up to the back of Mount Rushmore and put the panels in. We felt like we had done something so that 10,000 years from now, somebody will find this and know what it is. So it was done, you know. And I feel proud that we were able to do that.

The repository contains sixteen porcelain enamel panels. Inscribed on the panels is the story of how Mount Rushmore came to be carved, who carved it, the reasons for selecting the four presidents depicted on the mountain, and a short history of the United States. This repository is not accessible to visitors but is left as a record for people thousands of years from now who may wonder how and why Mount Rushmore was carved.

Make your student’s work known to SPI! Feedback is critical!

SPI makes its work available to all, free of charge.

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