Royalty-free images by Mike1 — No. 148 of over 1200 images
Mt. Rushmore, South Dakota, August 22, 2007 (Pentax K10D)
Accomplishment of Lincoln
President Calvin Coolidge at the dedication of Mt. Rushmore, August 10, 19272
After our Country had been established, enlarged from sea to sea, and dedicated to popular Government, the next great task was to demonstrate the permanency of our Union and to extend the principle of freedom to all inhabitants of our land.
The master of this supreme accomplishment was Abraham Lincoln. Above all other national figures, he holds the love of his fellow countrymen. The work which Washington and Jefferson began, he extended to its logical conclusions.
Mount Rushmore3
Mount Rushmore National Memorial is centered on a colossal sculpture carved into the granite face of Mount Rushmore (Lakota Tȟuŋkášila Šákpe, or Six Grandfathers) in the Black Hills near Keystone, South Dakota. Sculptor Gutzon Borglum created the sculpture’s design and oversaw the project’s execution from 1927 to 1941 with the help of his son, Lincoln Borglum. The sculpture features the 60-foot (18 m) heads of Presidents George Washington (1732–1799), Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) and Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865), as recommended by Borglum. The four presidents were chosen to represent the nation’s birth, growth, development and preservation, respectively. The memorial park covers 1,278 acres (2.00 sq mi; 5.17 km2)[7] and the actual mountain has an elevation of 5,725 feet (1,745 m) above sea level.
The sculptor and tribal representatives settled on Mount Rushmore, which also has the advantage of facing southeast for maximum sun exposure.
Mount Rushmore was conceived with the intention of creating a site to lure tourists, representing “not only the wild grandeur of its local geography but also the triumph of modern civilization over that geography through its anthropomorphic representation.
In 1933, the National Park Service took Mount Rushmore under its jurisdiction.
Borglum died from an embolism in March 1941. His son, Lincoln Borglum, continued the project. Originally, it was planned that the figures would be carved from head to waist, but insufficient funding forced the carving to end.
(Read much, much more at Wikipedia)
Post Endnotes
- I am sharing some of my public domain images in periodic blog posts.
- “Coolidge Dedicates Mountain Memorial to Four Presidents; He Lauds the Achievements of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Roosevelt.” The New York Times, August 11, 1927. Accessed August 11, 2021. https://www.nytimes.com/1927/08/11/archives/coolidge-dedicates-mountain-memorial-to-four-presidents-he-lauds.html.
- “Mount Rushmore.” Wikipedia. last edit August 11, 2021 (as a result of an error spotted while composing this post). Accessed August 11, 2021. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Rushmore.
Series Notes:
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