Mount Rushmore:
A Monument to the American Land Ethic

Julie McKeel • Sarah James
Sarah Nelson • Caleb Kasper

   
    On the National Park Service website, Mount Rushmore is advertised as memorializing “the birth, growth, preservation and development of the United States of America.”  The faces of four American presidents carved into a granite mountain in the Black Hills of South Dakota not only memorialize four great eras in American history, but also impact, shape, and reflect American values of today.  From its interaction with natural environment, to the rather sordid history of its creator, to its broader meaning as a work of art, Mount Rushmore leaves even the casual tourist with many ethical issues to bring home and ponder.  The national monument Mount Rushmore is a manifestation of the American consciousness capturing and memorializing in stone American history, environmental awareness, ethical egoism, and artistic values. 
      From 1927 to 1941 over 400 men set to work to carve four American faces out of 1000-foot long and 500-foot high Mount Rushmore in South Dakota.  The idea began in the early 1920s when South Dakota state historian Doane Robinson suggested that South Dakota tourism might be boosted if huge effigies of great Western heroes were carved out of the unique granite needles in the western part of the state.  Robinson initially suggested that explorers Lewis and Clark, Jim Bridget, and Sioux warrior Red Cloud be memorialized in this monument.  This inclusive plan to memorialize Western achievements, however, evolved into a more specific design exalting American drive and determination through history.  This American memorial came to be located on an even bigger and better site than the South Dakota needles: Mount Rushmore. 
          For 400 years Americans have had a unique relationship with the land.  Even before the birth of this country the incomprehensible vastness of the land and the American West instilled in the American consciousness expectations of infinite resources and rejuvenation.  Today, many Americans still see the land that surrounds them as disposable and theirs for the taking. 
      With this American land value of infinite sustainability, many environmental issues arise.  The inherent conflict between man and nature was finally addressed and admitted by the artist George Catlin, who was inspired by the Native American culture and its unity with the land.  Beginning in 1832 in the Great Plains documenting on canvas the life of the Plains Indians before the white man’s intervention, Catlin was then driven to acknowledge a greater need in America: conservation.  Congress reflected the shifting land American land value in 1864 when it set aside Yosemite Valley in California as a state park, and, eight years later, Yellowstone as a national park (Mackintosh).  Finally, the 1916 Organic Act under Woodrow Wilson’s Administration officially established the National Park System (NPS):
            The service thus established shall promote and regulate the use of the Federal areas known as national parks, monuments, and reservations … which purpose to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wildlife therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations. (MLO, Government Document, 1916 Organic Act) The establishment of the NPS marks America’s acknowledgement that rapid consumption of the land will prove detrimental to future generations, and that present preservation is key.  Although the NPS may also originally have been an attempt to right the wrong of westward expansion, it still reflects the new American landscape value of preservation leaving the frontier and at least some parts of nature unsurpassed and unconquered by humans. 
      The National Park System protects land and memorials, like Mount Rushmore, not only to preserve American history and values, but also in order to preserve the unique environment surrounding the monument.  The 1,278 acres of land surrounding Mount Rushmore is a unique mosaic of landscapes and ecosystems reflecting in nature where the East meets the West.  Forests of interlocking trees, rocky needles signaling the start of the Rockies, and wide expanses of prairies brush up against one another in this diverse landscape.  The elevation of a specific location determines the native animal and plant life of that area.  An occasional white-coated Rocky Mountain goat and sparse vegetation characterize the less abundant high altitude locations while the lower elevations are dense with hardwoods such as ponderosa pine, bur oak, and black hills spruce, as well as various shrubs, and even, at certain times of year, an abundance of wildflowers.  Because of the unique plant environment at the lower elevations, the park is home to many native species of birds and animals such as mountain goats, hawks, meadowlarks, turkey vultures, and bobcats. 
      Currently, the park is suffering from the invasion of several exotic species of plants.  Many of the nonnative species that infest nearly 180 acres of the park have been introduced to the area in only the last 100 years and are concentrated primarily in areas disturbed by humans like parking lots, roadsides, and trails.  Plants such as Canada thistle, field bindweed, musk thistle and sweet clover are all examples of invasive species that pose a problem to the park.  This problem is not however unique to the land of Mount Rushmore National Monument (even St. Olaf’s land is infested with invasive species such as Buckthorn).  The Five Year Strategic Plan published by the park addresses the problem of the exotic species seeking to control or eradicate the nonnative species through identification, surveying of disturbed areas and trail sides, and the use of both chemical and non-chemical methods (www.nps.gov/moru).  Through measures such as the Five Year Strategic plan, the NPS is fulfilling its duty of conservation established in the 1916 Organic Act. 
      Mount Rushmore National Monument must address problems such as the invader species because of its attraction as a tourist site.  In 1999 alone, in a state populated by a mere 754,844 people, an estimated 1,972,289 tourists flocked to the park.  Mount Rushmore provides a prime tourism destination in a place that may otherwise have been overlooked.  The impact of both traffic and tourism affects the land far more than just the introduction of nonnative species as the human visitors demand lodging, restaurants, and entertainment in addition to the park facilities.  High levels of tourism in the past ten years made the construction of new facilities within the park necessary.  The new additions include a multilevel parking ramp, a larger amphitheater, a larger visitor center, and a concession complex.  South Dakota highway 244 even had to be rerouted to accommodate these new amenities.  Also in the Five-Year Strategic Plan, to replace the presently exhausted facility, is a new wastewater facility plant that will treat a maximum of
75,000 gallons per day.  It seems a little absurd that all this manmade disruption originates in the simple desire to see the monument and its surrounding natural habitat.  How much tourism is too much and have we reached the point where the NPS’s original mission is violated?
      Overall, the land surrounding the monument has been closely managed and the NPS has fulfilled its mission to conserve the land and preserve it for future generations.  The threat of excessive tourism and human contact with the land, however, needs to be taken in to consideration before further changes take place.  The land needs to be somehow regulated in order to preserve the ideal “savage” qualities of an American landscape.
    Clearly we can see that the environmental issues surrounding Mount Rushmore are far reaching.  To further examine the rationale used to justify the sculpting and construction of Mount Rushmore, one must delve into the ethical issues that surround the monument. These stem from social situations within the United States, treaty negotiation between the Indians and the European Americans, and the ever influential American land ethic.     
    In order to examine these issues we must first recognize that the mountain Mount Rushmore occupies, all of the Black Hills, and indeed all of the Dakotas was once the tribal territory of the Lakota (Dakota Sioux).  The entire Black Hills area is considered a sacred place by the Lakota.  From their point of view, Mount Rushmore or, “The Six Grandfathers” as it was once called,  is part of a land that was stolen from them by the United States.   The history of conflict surrounding the monument is important in understanding our duty in concern to the modern treatment of Mount Rushmore.
    The Treaties of 1851 and 1868 established the Great Sioux Reservation in parts of Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Wyoming. (Lazarus)  Although this treaty limited the territorial and hunting grounds of the Sioux, it did allow them a large parcel of land.  The US government wished to appear to exercise utilitarian decisions.  However, the reservation land was accepted as having little value to the whites, and therefore perfect for an Indian reservation.  With the ulterior motive of both ending the “Indian problem” with useless reservation land and further subjugation, the US government reaffirmed the American landscape ethic.  Through this ethic, land was preserved only for its aesthetic quality and more often than not subdued it for its usefulness to humans.  Because cultural ethical relativism would force the US to recognize the Lakota culture and land a selfish egoist standpoint was adopted.(Hinman)  Upon the discovery of gold within the Black Hills of South Dakota in 1974, the once useless land became land the government could not live without. (Parker)
    Although 1875 had been the most peaceful year between the Indians and the whites in over a decade, the United States government established that the Lakota of the Great Sioux Reservation were hostile.(Lazarus)   This proclamation justified the thievery and aggression that was to come.  In early 1876 Colonel Custer and his 7th Cavalry were ordered to attack the Lakota settlement at The Little Bighorn.   Custer, along with the 7th Cavalry were crushed by a large band of Lakota warriors.  After the historic defeat of Colonel Custer in June of 1876 by the Lakota warriors led by Crazy Horse,  the United States Government wanted revenge.  Military campaigns against remaining Lakota bands, the opening of the Black Hills to prospecting, and finally the forcing of the Lakota to sign over the Black Hills to the United States through the Maypenny Treaty in late 1876 reaffirmed the policy of the government toward the Indians. (Lazarus)
    Utilitarian ethics would have the inclusion of the greater good for the Lakota within any treaty. Utilitarian ideals were again overlooked as the many of the Lakota’s remaining sacred places and hunting grounds were claimed by the United States Government.   Instead of ethical utilitarianism, the US claims the prospective of calculating ethical egoism. (Hinman)   This ethical ideology would allow the US to act in a way to promote its own long-term self interest. The US government acted in both a short term way by encouraging the mining of gold,  and in a long term way by the elimination of the Indian threat.
    During the summer of 1927, while Lakota leaders attempted to assert treaty rights and reclaim the Black Hills, the sculpting of Mount Rushmore began upon a mountain in the Black Hills.   This sacred mountain had been previously called the “Six Grandfathers” by the Lakota. (Lazarus)  The art was commissioned by the government, and ulterior motives were involved beyond art for art’s sake.  The monument showed and encouraged patriotism, but this patriotism was an exercise of US nationalism upon Lakota land.  This show of nationalism was permanent. Etched in stone the monument will last thousands of years, unlike Spiral Jetty or the Running Fence.  The use of the land to bring about this permanence was quite an egotistical move as well.  Sculptor and administration consciously decided that their vision of the mountain was an improvement upon the land.  They again imposed the American landscape ethic.  Finally, modern day Mount Rushmore is a shrine to the brotherhood of dead white men, rather than a recognition of other races, women, or progressives.  This will be examined more later.
    Because of tensions still existing between the two cultures, and still unresolved treaty issues, there is little room for compromise.  The mountain on which Mount Rushmore is carved is either sacred American Indian land or it is not.  It is either a monument owned by and glorifying the United States, or it is not.  Today how should we portray Mount Rushmore?  Can we set aside the negative stigma and tell the whole historical story while still encouraging patriotism?  Can we morally support and glorify this clear example of the subjugation of the land with full understanding of the historical realities?  In order to reach conclusions we must learn more about the true inspiration behind the art.
    The egoistic thrust of American values inherent in Mount Rushmore stems from its beginnings in the hands of its sculptor, Gutzon Borglum.  Despite his foreign-sounding name, Borglum was born in Idaho on the American frontier in 1867.  He spent a number of years studying art abroad mainly in France before returning to the United States in 1901.  His return home was marked by a sudden drive to exalt and celebrate the American perspective.  “Art in America should be American, drawn from American sources, memorializing American achievement,” Borglum is quoted as saying in Donald D. Jackson’s 1992 Smithsonian article on Mount Rushmore and its sculptor.  This statement launched Borglum into the Mount Rushmore project where he successfully created a truly monumental work of American art.
      Worth of note also are the extremes of sculptor Borglum’s personality and actions.  Though his drive to preserve and stimulate an understanding of what American is all about is laudable, his close association with the KKK and anti-Semitic prejudices are not so eagerly admitted and acknowledged by the American public proud of their national monument.  Unfortunately, to separate the art from the artist is a difficult task, and perhaps not altogether undesirable as the artist as a person may somehow be reflected in his art.  Even ignoring Borglum’s inner circle position in the KKK still leaves him as an egoistic, self-assured man quoted as saying, “I personally do not need government” and “A man should do everything.”  Ironic that Borglum’s greatest fame stems from a memorial soaked in American government, but fitting that he expresses such American confidence in human potential and power.
      Mount Rushmore, regardless of what sort of person its creator was, has come to mean many things to our society - an environmental burden, an irreversible ethical statement, and an international tourist destination, but the phenomenon of this giant monument begins and ends with a work of art.  Examining the sculpture in terms of the traditional aspects of art gives us a clear idea of Mount Rushmore’s impact as a work of art that strongly exemplifies many of the very American values that shaped it.  The scale, subject, medium, process, and setting all contribute to the overwhelming message of domination and patriarchy carved forever in the landscape of our nation.
      As the largest work of art on earth, with each head at 60 feet tall, Mount Rushmore commands attention through its sheer enormity, and towers over the landscape in an intensely public display.  Perpetuating the idea of unlimited expansion and land resources shared by the frontier visionaries and early surveyors, the monument was sculpted as if there was an overabundance of rocky cliffs just waiting to be exploited by anyone with the desire to
leave their artistic mark.  Land ownership has long been a symbol of wealth and power, and Borglum found most heroic those leaders who were responsible for the acquisition of land and physical expansion of the nation.  Washington was a major surveyor, Jefferson was responsible for the Louisiana Purchase and the Lewis and Clark expedition, Lincoln preserved the union during the Civil War, and Roosevelt’s actions led to the creation of the Panama Canal.  It’s not a coincidence that these men were chosen as Borglum’s subjects, and the grand scale of their portrait is appropriate to their significance in the sculptor’s mind.  The size of this monument celebrates not only the power of these incredibly influential men, but of the important role
power itself plays as an American value.
      The four men selected as subjects for this enormous carving are significant not only for their contributions to American land, but also as symbols of progress, democratic government, and of the most aggressively ethnocentric group living in the United States.  Along with being strong and powerful leaders, these four presidents represent the progression of power through the years, and the continuous “civilization” of the untamed nature and native people of the United States.  Instead of uniting these historic figures by involving them in a single event, Borglum insisted on carving these four figures with no real relationship to one another besides their shared presidential position and pursuit of similar goals.  Borglum’s choice of subjects is, however, rather unique to the history of art, and of sculpture in particular, in that few well-known works of art involve figures or characters from obviously different eras.  The choice to depict these four presidents seems an odd juxtaposition, instead of a cohesive narrative or allegorical scene.  Borglum has ignored this traditional subject-to-subject relationship to promote the importance of American progress and the conquering of each new frontier.  These leaders, through the influential position they assumed as president, are deservedly among the clearest symbols of democracy and of the American government that, unfortunately, is so often responsible for broken treaties, land disputes, and racist policies.  They represent the ever-dominant, ever-successful group of wealthy, white, Christian men who, from our nation’s beginning, created an oppressively patriarchal society.  Logically, if America’s still predominantly wealthy, white Christian politicians and leaders could chose one subject, that they would have welcomed as a giant monument, it would be a reflection of themselves looking down over all they’ve accomplished and over the country they’ve created in their own image. 
      Mount Rushmore not only champions these four historical men, but also celebrates the apparent achievement of simply being in the white male majority.  Positioning Mount Rushmore at the top of a high rock outcropping gives the figures the ideal vantage point for assuming the literal magisterial gaze over the land below.  They are the implied rulers of all things under their limitless scope of vision.  Borglum has taken this already omnipresent force of government and white conquerors and literally etched it into the landscape of America.  By physically incorporating the magisterial gaze high above the earth, he reinforces its overwhelming presence in the continuous shaping of the nation.
      The medium and process of the monument are other aspects that coincide with the sculpture’s message of power, progress, and patriarchy.  The enormous faces of Mount Rushmore are carved in hard granite, some of the world’s oldest rock.  According to geologists, the surface will erode only one inch every 10,000 years, which seems ironically appropriate for a sculpture already so strongly imposed on the landscape.  This element of permanence reaffirms the belief that the expansionist values supported by both the Presidents and the artist are enduring in our consciousness and transcend the boundaries of new centuries and new millenniums.  What first made America great in their eyes is what will continue to bring guidance and greatness to the future visionaries’ plans and policies.  The process of carving this immense rock is another reflection of the way our nation was created of bold conquest, methodical division and, and insensitive destruction.  Taking measurements from Borglum’s 12-1 scale model of the monument, skilled workers removed 90% of the granite using explosive dynamite.  Though obviously necessary when taking on such a large piece of land, this harsh, entirely impersonal
process of destruction for the sake of creation echoes the claiming and cultivating of the land for agricultural, economic purposes.  Early Americans (as well as many present day Americans) believed that untouched land was being wasted until it was put to some use through development and labor.  Imposing grids over the land without regard for natural boundaries or any sort of preservation accomplished this task of making the land useful.  While Borglum was surely not planning to mimic this civilization of the land, his process grows from the same attitude of dominion and superiority that allows him to believe the land is better used after the removal of 450,000 tons of its granite by his own hand and vision.
      When we think about the creation of Mount Rushmore, we picture hundreds of workers suspended on lines high in the air, taking measurements with giant poles, and blasting the faces with dynamite to create the facial contours.  This is not the intimate portrait of a sculptor in his studio dedicatedly working and reshaping a labor of love full of emotion and careful detail.  This large-scale procedure, coupled with the unusual size and subject, is what ultimately makes the actual viewing of Mount Rushmore somewhat of a disappointment.  Beyond the impressive size of the monument (which is less effective in real life because of the great distance from which the tourists must view the sculpture), there is really nothing to hold your attention.  Nothing of the emotional, organic, molded and chiseled artistry of Borglum’s teacher, Auguste Rodin, shows through.  The faces are closer to a 3-dimensional adaptation of a Xerox copy of stiff and ordinary presidential portraits.  These smooth faces do, however, command a dull respect in their expressions of unflinching strength, but they project little else.  Perhaps Borglum’s only concern was creating austere likenesses of the four men, but in claiming his sculpture to be a great shrine to democracy, he requires unsurpassed excellence in his art.  As Boime states, “Because he confused bigness with greatness, he thought of himself as an artist producing monuments that rivaled the achievements of the ancients.”  No wonder the monument demands a 5,300 square foot gift shop, huge restaurants, and nightly fireworks displays - it doesn’t hold up on its own as a tourist attraction or a work of art.  The technical achievement of creating a monument so large certainly cannot be denied, but when held to the standards of great art, Mount Rushmore is only captivating for a very brief time.  If not a breathtaking work of artistic genius, Mount Rushmore is a perfect example and expression of America’s obsession with itself and with its literally enormous accomplishments.
    Characterized by the quote, “The Shrine of Democracy”, Mount Rushmore occupies the heart of our country and portrays the ideals of our national government.  The environmental issues of the national park and the method of protecting the lands surrounding the park are an  indicator of our relationship with the land.   The aim of the National Park System seems to contradict the history    surrounding the establishment of Mount Rushmore.  Whereas the US government would like to portray its actions as utilitarian in nature, its subjugation of the Lakota and the seizure of the Black Hills was selfish rational egoism.  Gutzon Borglum was commissioned to sculpt Mount Rushmore, and although his feat if quite impressive, his past involvement in the KKK and separatist views discredit his work. Even the sculpture itself forces one to question both the validity and effectiveness of the subject.  The stiff brotherhood of white male leaders examines the land from a magisterial perch, but the history of the monument and the ethical questions we must raise today belittle the presidents’ power.  Are we to continue to view this monument in the manner Borglum intended, or should we seize the opportunity to reevaluate its egoist roots.  At the end of the day, after all ethical, historical, artistic, and environmental issues have been thoroughly discussed the faces of Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson, and Roosevelt will still look out over the land that they helped to shape.  This monument will live in permanence  as, if not a justifier, at least a reminder of the American land ethic. 









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