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The Self-Made : George and the Fight to Erect a National Memorial Author(s): Kirk Savage Source: Winterthur Portfolio, Vol. 22, No. 4 (Winter, 1987), pp. 225-242 Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1181181 Accessed: 22-09-2016 13:46 UTC

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This content downloaded from 132.174.254.12 on Thu, 22 Sep 2016 13:46:16 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms The Self-made Monument

George Washington and the Fight to Erect a National Memorial

Kirk Savage

HE 555-FOOT on the Mall in Even in his own time Washington and the nation Washington, D.C., is one of the most con- he led were largely products of the collective im- spicuous structures in the world, standing agination. America was then-and to some extent alone on a grassy plain at the very core of national remains-an intangible thing, an idea: a voluntary power-approximately the intersection of the two compact of individuals rather than a family, tribe, great axes defined by the and theor race. When Washington took command of the Capitol. The structure itself lives up to its un-revolutionary army, he gave the new nation a land- rivaled site: it dominates the city around it not mark,just a visible center to which scattered settle- by sheer height but also by its powerful soaring ments of people divided by cultural background contours and stark face (fig. 1). This and economic interest could pledge their alle- "mighty sign," as one orator called it a century ago,giance. Necessity made Washington an instant is the nation's monument to , icon, and from the beginning necessity buried the "the Father of His Country"-a historical figure real figure beneath a mound of verse, oratory, and almost as impenetrable as the blank shaft that com- imagery, all vying to give shape to the icon and memorates him.' therefore to the nation.2 What can be made of the Washington Monu- It is useful to think of Washington as a histor- ment? The answer depends on the interpretation ical invention; history made him perhaps more of Washington himself. For both the man and histhan he made history. This essay attempts to inter- monument were once the symbolic battlegrounds pret probably the most conspicuous, and certainly for long-standing disputes over national identity. the most problematic, undertaking in that histor- ical campaign: the effort to build him a national Kirk Savage is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of the monument. The undertaking began in the eigh- History of Art, University of California, Berkeley. teenth century (when Washington was still alive), The author thanks Svetlana Alpers, Margaretta Lovell, ran into partisan warfare after his death, and Elizabeth Thomas, and Dell Upton for reading and comment- ing on earlier versions of this essay. floundered for decades in unending disputes over The interpretive literature on the Washington Monument designs and intentions. The controversy is all the is scanty. Two sketchy accounts are found in Frederick more striking if one looks at the achievements of Gutheim, "Who Designed the Washington Monument?" AIA Journal 15, no. 3 (March 1951): 136-41; and Ada Louise Hux- local campaigns during the same period. States table, "The Washington Monument, 1836-84," Progressive Ar- and cities had no trouble displaying their patrio- chitecture 38, no. 8 (August 1957): 141-44. A discussion of some tism in a series of impressive to Wash- of the alternative designs is in Robert Belmont Freeman, Jr., "Design Proposals for the Washington National Monument," ington, including a statue by Antonio Canova in Records of the Columbia Historical Society, vols. 73-74 (Washing- Raleigh, North Carolina (1821), a 220-foot column ton, D.C., 1973-74), pp. 151-86. For a recent and stimulating in , Maryland (1829), and a colossal interpretation of the monument in the context of the Mall, see Charles L. Griswold, "The Vietnam Veterans Memorial and the Washington Mall: Philosophical Thoughts on Political Iconog- 2 On Washington as icon, see, among others, Marcus Cun- raphy," Critical Inquiry 12, no. 4 (Summer 1986): 693-96. None liffe, George Washington: Man and Monument (: Mentor of these, however, attempts to place the monument in the con- Books, 1982); William Alfred Bryan, George Washington in text of the historical campaign to commemorate Washington American Literature, 1775-1865 (New York: Columbia Univer- and the controversy that campaign generated. sity Press, 1952); and Wendy C. Wick, George Washington, an ? 1987 by The Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, American Icon: The Eighteenth-Century Graphic Portraits (Char- Inc. All rights reserved. oo84-0416/87/2204-0001 $03.00 lottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1982).

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trying to sort out the design process, has argued that the monument as finally built "reflects the im- print, over many years, of so many forces that in the end we are less aware of individual genius than of that cumulative genius we call culture." Or as Americans claimed when the obelisk was finished in the 188os, it was a work of "the people," a monu- ment that seemed to make itself and to make America.3 Indeed, the obelisk seems to serve as the per- fect expression of union-a great mass coalesced into a single gesture that belies all dissension. But plo this way of reading the monument speaks more of longing than of reality. The blank shaft was in no ~ /VS ...... way built by consensus. It was instead the achieve- ment of an engineer working in virtual secrecy, outside the political process and against the pro- tests of the artistic community. In fact, Washing- ton's monument could be finished only by obliter- ating his traces in the process, not only from the structure itself but also from the discussion sur- rounding it. The more we examine the "resolu- tion" his monument represents, the more unset- tling it looks and the more unsettled the critical il4~ :;ii reactions to it appear. The engineered unity of this soaring obelisk gave the nation an image of its own destiny, an image at once powerfully appealing and yet in many ways troubling to this day. With an almost unerring instinct, Washington played a role fraught with paradox. He was the leader of a nation that had in theory renounced the notion of a leader. The republican theory of Fig. 1. Washington Monument, Washington, D.C., 1848-85. (Photo, Kirk government, Savage.) following Enlightenment ideals, held that men could govern themselves; to the extent that formal government was necessary at all, it was equestrian statue toin be conductedRichmond, by representation rather Virginia than pre- (1858). But the national enterprise rogative. Even the federalists, forced who had less anconfi- issue that could not be swept awaydence in republican by simpleman than in strong, appeals central to patri- otism. If Washington authority, wascould not disavowthe the founding ideology of self- father, what kind of nation government. did Washington'she found? genius lay inErecting his adap- a na- tional monument tationto toWashington this difficulty: he became the ultimately reluctant de- manded a symbolic leader.construction He preferred of to America.power, or The trouble originated, so he said; and the after more he demurred Washington's or pro- death, in a profound tested, theideological more power he got.4 dispute over the nature of the republic. Washington As in mythnew embodied disputes the very ideal of followed, the campaign to unify self-regulation around on which theWashington's republican experi- mem- ory continued to betray significant fissures in the

American self-image. 3 Gutheim, Not "Who even Designed the Monument,"the Civil p. 136. War could end the discord; it took 4 For biographical another details, see Cunliffe, twenty George Washington; years to bring the memorial my interpretationto completion. owes much to his. The scholarly Commentators debate on at the time, and historians the nature of American since republicanism isthen, still alive and hashave re- chosen vealed significant variants in the ideology; my interest is in how to interpret this messy Washington himself,history by virtue of his asunique aposition, pluralistic magnified drive toward ultimate consensus. Frederick Gutheim, those tensions inherent in republicanism.

This content downloaded from 132.174.254.12 on Thu, 22 Sep 2016 13:46:16 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Washington Monument 227 ment rested; by governing the temptation to grasp power he became preeminently qualified to exer- cise it. Washington's own model of leadership was probably the "patriot-king" of English political the- ory, yet the one model that consistently appealed to his contemporaries came ...... N5 . 1?i/ from the fabled of republican Rome. It was the ii i; : : -figure of Cincinna- tus-the farmer who dropped his plow to lead the defense of Rome, only to relinquish command as soon as the danger had passed. Significantly, the example legitimized leadership -_-- !!! ! iil ! !i! only!!~---i~; i_~: : iII i in times of emer- gency. Americans clung to the idea that Wash- ington, like Cincinnatus, could not be persuaded to take power unless he was assured that the survival of the country depended i i !'iiiii!;i;!;on i i i :;;ii:: l~ ; : .. ' ii:iiii him; otherwise he would leave the people to govern themselves, as they were supposed to in a republic. 5 If Washington could !!!! not!!!ii! solve the contradic- tions inherent in republican leadership, he served perhaps a more importantFig. 2. Edmerole as a Bouchardon,model of re- equestrian statue of Louis publican citizenship. XV, To ,remain a1748-62. national icon From in a Pierre Patte, Monumens eriges republic, a form ofa lagovernment gloire deincompatible Louis XV with (Paris: By the author, 1765), pl. 1. the whole idea of (Universityicons, Washington of had California, to become Berkeley Library.) the archetypal republican. Thus the most popular biography of Washington Adams of hisrealized, era, the life thewrit- claim that Washington was ten by Parson Weems, representative was essentially a primer (a Washington) in and the claim that the private virtues he on waswhich aunique self-governing (the re- Washington) were obviously public depends: piety, incompatible. temperance, industry, Was jus- Washington an "example" (the tice. Yet even in thedouble role of moralmeaning exemplar, of Wash- the word example is significant), ington could not avoidor was paradox. he In an their aberration? desire to The question went to the broadcast Washington's heart virtues-and of the byproblem extension of creating a suitable monu- their own republic's ment, virtues-Americans and the answers were led implied different notions of into a self-defeating "the rhetoric. people" By making and Washing- "the nation." ton's virtues so extraordinary The first that proposal he surpassed for all a monument to Washing- ancient and modern ton prototypes, avoided rhetoric the threat-republican paradoxes entirely and ened to transform reverted him into a demigod, to a grandbeyond the monarchical prototype. At the aspiration of any closeordinary of individual. the revolutionary war, in 1783, the Con- warned in 1785: "Insteadtinental of adoring Congress a Washing- voted to erect an equestrian ton, mankind should statue, applaud "the the nation general which to be represented in Roman educated him. . . dress,. I glory holdingin the character a truncheon of a in his right hand." This Washington, because was I preciselyknow him to thebe only representation an favored by Louis exemplification ofXV, the Americanfollowing character."6 the Asoriginal imperial example of Marcus Aurelius (fig. 2). In 1791, when Washing- ton was serving his first term as president, Pierre 5 On Washington Charles and the L'Enfant patriot-king, incorporated see Ralph Ketcham, the proposed Presidents above Party: The First American Presidency, 1789-1829 (Chapel Hill: Universityequestrian of Northinto Carolinahis plan Press, of 1984),the capital-atPP. the 89-91. The Cincinnatus pivotal pointmyth is"A" the wheresubject theof Gary two Wills, central Cin- axes of his cinnatus, George map Washington, converged and at the the Enlightenment: river's edge Images (fig. of3). Thus the Power in Early America (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1984). In his admiration for the Cincinnatus ideal, Wills does not exam- ine how the ideal reveals strains inherent in the very notion of republican leadership. quoted in Bryan, Washington in Literature, p. 3o. Adams's own 6 Mason L. Weems, views Thetoward Life ofWashington Washington, are ed. complex Marcus Cun- and atypical of the liffe (Cambridge, federalists, Mass.: whoHarvard generally University engaged Press, in the Belknap kind of shamelessly Press, 1962); inflated Adams rhetoric that Adams abhorred. to John Lebb, September to, 1785, as

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these Devices, only a book inscribed-'Life of Gen- .LEK flF eral Washington,' and underneath-'Stranger read it. Citizens imitate his example.' " Jay's desire 1 06L D 70 for a "laconic" monument reflects a wider trend in taste toward neoclassical simplicity, a trend linked to a new veneration of republican Rome; the re- :log : O tii- publican hero need not have his exploits trum- :Q ?00 0 F-Ot n

ED C :- peted. Jay's proposal would also change the impe- s:_:::~1I~i!:l-i-v n F rial model by presenting the leader explicitly for imitation, not reverence. The suggestion was less a --i~ ~:-- iii~:-isli~ii~:i-:-i ~ LD L OLi~iii-i ~ iiiiii~i: solution than an uneasy compromise between re-

I0t2JtI~IO~O publican ideas and monarchical imagery. The statue was never erected. The record of debate does not survive, but one can assume that there ':?\'JEDOEII 110 EME 5DOLIDnLJO were more profound objections than mere cost. C-D c7Z3 ?i I, -m cr Even in painted portraits of Washington, images of = 0 UI3 0UOD =09 30 300 ARDOOF 00 DE: equestrian command did not prove popular.8 Washington's death, on December 14, 1799, opened the way for a much more open confronta- tion with the issues that had quietly troubled the equestrian proposal. Between 1791 and 1799 the ideological differences between the federalists and Fig. 3. Pierre Charles L'Enfant, plan of Washington, 1791 (detail). Facsimile, the opposition United republicans States had grown Coast and had and Geo- detic Survey Office, polarized1887. the Lithograph;groups into two distinct politicalH. 311/2",par- W. 471/4". (Cartographic, ties.National In the few daysArchives.) after Washington's death, however, the two parties set aside their differences great commander would and agreed standon a program at of commemoration. the point The of ori- gin of the entire scheme, unanimous resolution authority of December radiating24, 1799, out- ward from his image called to for thea public two tomb tohouses be erected in of the federal power and thence toCapitol, the despite outlyingWashington's express instructionsplazas repre- senting individual states.7 for burial in Mount Vernon.9 But what kind of But this kind of imagery tomb and how elaborate?was too Here the much ideological ten-at odds with the ideology of sion its exploded day. to the surfaceAs earlyin a display ofas party Washing- ton's first term in officepolitics that hasan since opposition then largely escaped notice.party was growing that used the The dispute charge originated ofwith amonarchism proposal, spon- to embarrass the federalists, sored by the federalists,to question to enlarge the their monument loyalty to the republican cause. from the indoor If tomb the envisaged opposition in the December could criticize official ceremony, resolution to a hugeWashington's outdoor mausoleum in theimage on coins, and public celebrations form of a stepped pyramid oftoo feet his high. Thebirthday, de- would not L'Enfant's sign, plan by Benjamin be allLatrobe, the was evenmore more "la- exposed to attack? Even staunch conic" than federalist Jay's earlier proposal; John yet Jay intended Jay felt compelled to soften understatementthe provocative while Latrobe's pyramidimplications aimed of the equestrian proposal. for overstatement, In asummoning report the ancient to awe-the Con- gress, in 1785, he inspiringsuggested geometry of omittingthe pharaohs to inflate the bas- reliefs of Washington's Washington's battle claims to everlastingvictories fame. Latrobe's envisaged for the pedestal of the idea was equestrian. clearly indebted to the "Woulddesigns of French it not be more laconic," Jay wrote funerary architects, to Congress, especially Etienne-Louis "equally Boul- ner- vous, and less expensive, to put in the Place of

s Donald H. Stewart, The Opposition Press of the Federalist 7Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-I 789, ed. Worth-Period (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1969), pp. ington Chauncey Ford, Gaillard Hunt, John C. Fitzpatrick, 487-88, and 519-21; Journals of Congress, 29:86; Wills, Cincinnatus, Roscoe R. Hill, 34 vols. (Washington, D.C.: Government p. 82.Print- ing Office, 1904-37) 24:492; J. P. Dougherty, "Baroque 9 See,and for example, John C. Miller, The , I789- Picturesque Motifs in L'Enfant's Design for the Federal i8oi Capi-(New York: Harper and Brothers, 1960), pp. 99-125; and tal," American Quarterly 26, no. 1 (March 1974): 23-26. Annals of Congress, 6th Cong., 1st sess., p. 208.

This content downloaded from 132.174.254.12 on Thu, 22 Sep 2016 13:46:16 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Washington Monument 229 lke, who had already proposal was to elevate suggested Washington far above the the idea of gigantic pyramids for national common man, to establish heroes. the utter remoteness ofBoullke's pyramids, too fantastic in hisscale achievement. Surelyto Washington be couldbuildable, not be were never- theless important considered an asexample conceptualfor the common man to experiments in the psychology imitate of when, standingthe below "sublime."'o the looming pyra- His Egyptian cenotaph is meant mid, the latterto felt astonishhimself "sinking," crushed be-and even terrify the beholder, who neathmust the "sublimity" imagine of Washington's unblem- himself shrunk to nothingness below ished life. Thethe federalists' immensity own rhetoric betrayed a of the structure; the driving clouds greater interest and in pacifying the the populace sharp than in contrast of bright face against dark instructing reinforce it; this is especially apparent thein their effect by adding a natural drama to obsession the with the securityarchitectural of the monument. For one (fig. 4). La- trobe's rendering them the pyramidof was a above pyramid all a stronghold that for Washington, although brought could not be down"broken and destroyed to by a alawless more realistic scale, exploits the same mob or bypictorial a set of schoolboys." Although language a republi- in its play of light, its active cansky, himself, Latrobe and appealed toeven his federalist pa-its looming backdrop of trees (fig. 5). trons by emphasizing repeatedly the threat of van- The republicans dalism to ain less durable Congress, monument: "We know that sensitive to any sign of "royal evendisplay" [Washington's] virtues are orhated, by extravagance,fools and reacted sharply to this rogues,enlargement and unfortunately that sort of animalsin conception. To the federalists, however, crawl much about in public the buildings."'2 very sublimity of La- trobe's proposal These sentimentswas were essential.anathema to the repub- "It is indeed of infinite importance licans in Congress, to zealous civil defenders of society,"the self- one federalist said on the House governing floor, ordinary man. If the"that monument "were the memory of that great man should made of glass,"be Nathaniel perpetuated Macon claimed, "frail as by every means in our power." it Whatis, it would be safe." stronger To the republicans, the means, Henry Lee argued, than a largefederalists' desire and for an ever powerfullarger monument monument, one that would "impress rested on suspect motives.a sublime If the federalists were awe in all who be- hold it"? When genuinelythe interestedtime in promoting for Washington's a vote came, Latrobe's patron Robert Harper "example," why not dispense gushed with the monument tellingly: "I am aw- fully impressed altogether by and spendthe the money subject; to educate the I sink under the sublimity that surrounds poor? "Then, indeed," Macon added,it. "we No might words can reach it; mine are totally flatter ourselvesinadequate."11 with having extended the empire His own "inade- quate" words were of his virtues, carefully by making those understand chosen and to describe the feeling that a true imitate them patriotwho, uninstructed, could should not com- experience when confronted with prehend the them." In otherimmensity words, a failure in virtue of Washington's virtue. This was could the only be a samefailure in education. feeling Pure repub- that the pyramid was intended to licanism inspire led Macon and others in to question the the very spectator standing before it. act of commemoration, for any monument- What were the federalists really up to? They merely by singling out the hero from the great claimed that a "sublime" monument would impress mass-undermined their basic assumption that Washington's moral example more effectively than virtue and power resided in the ordinary individ- a modest tomb. Yet, without summoning overtly ual. The republicans were caught in a dilemma: monarchical imagery, the whole thrust of Latrobe's how to commemorate Washington without re- proaching the people. Some of them searched for answers, and by far the most extraordinary idea 10 The design is described in a letter from Latrobe to Con- gressman Henry Lee, April 24, 18oo, in John C. Van Horne came from John Nicholas of Virginia, who called and Lee W. Formwalt, eds., The Correspondence and Miscellaneous for nothing more than "a plain tablet, on which Papers of Benjamin Henry Latrobe, vol. 1 (New Haven: Yale Uni- versity Press, 1984), pp. 162-63. On the basis of this and other evidence, drawings formerly thought to be for the Richmond 12 Annals of Congress, 6th Cong., 2d sess., p. 8o0; Latrobe to theater monument are now conclusively identified as designs Robert Goodloe Harper, April 24, 18oo, as quoted in Van for the Washington mausoleum. For Boull6e's pyramids, see Horne and Formwalt, Correspondence and Papers, 1:16o-6 1. La- Richard A. Etlin, The Architecture of Death: The Transformation of trobe's letter is such a masterpiece of federalist condescension, the Cemetery in Eighteenth-Century Paris (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT targeting French revolutionaries and the popular mobs they Press, 1984), esp. pp. o09-15, 125-29. inspired, that it is hard to believe that he was ever republican. " Annals of Congress, 6th Cong., 2d sess., pp. 859, 802, 863. Clearly he knew how to please his patrons.

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every man could [Washington's] write what hismonument?" heart dictated. asked one senator in This, and this only, 1832, [is] "our the basisanswer of [Washington's]is, in our hearts." For all the fame."13 Nicholas's continuity tablet ofwould their deny rhetoric, that however,there the two sides was any legitimate by distance1832 had between actually theregrouped hero and in response to the the common man. major Instead crisis of ofawing the time-thethe populace, sectional conflict that Washington here threatened becomes oneto split with the it-literally union. The location of nothing more than Washington's what the peopletomb tookmake on of a him.special significance; it Nicholas's proposal could is bea brilliant used to solutionsanctify tothe the claims of one side whole problem of over representing the other. authorityThose congressmen in a re- who wanted to public. In this monumentmove Washington's the leader remains retains from his the family vault legitimacy only byat Mountdissolving Vernon himself to a intonational the tomball- in the capital embracing identity argued of the that citizenry; it "would once tend merged, to consolidate the the icon and the Unionpeople oftogether these states" testify by to making the vir- the political cen- tue of their republic. ter of the union at once a spiritual center, the sa- The debate over cred Washington's resting place tomb of wasthe reallyfounding father. But the a contest between opponents, two ideologies, led by betweenstates' rights oppos- advocates from the ing visions of South,republican followed man. Virginian In the Williamhighly Fitzhugh Gor- charged political don: atmosphere "The way toof cement 18oo- 18ol,the Union the [is] to imitate monument question the virtues became of asWashington; divisive as to the remove not his body, Alien and Sedition but, Laws if possible, or the otherto transfer major his issues spirit to these Halls." that have traditionally Washington's been considered spirit, Gordon the litmus clearly implied, did tests separating not federalist rest in thefrom halls republican. of the federal The government, but final proof is in withthe vote: his own on Januarypeople in 1, his 18o1, native the state; there his roll call in the House true monumenton the pyramid of virtue proposal was di-preserved. These re- vided along party marks lines-the are amongrepublicans the earliest voting indications34 of Wash- to o against and ington'sthe federalists coming voting role in 45 the to propaganda3 in war be- favor (the three tween dissenters North being and South, renegades when whohe would be claimed habitually voted on with the theone handother a side).'4defender The of fed-union and critic of eralist victory was slavery a Pyrrhic and one, on however,the other coming hand a slaveholding on the eve of Thomas planter Jefferson'sand leader of inauguration rebellion.'5 Eventually both and the republicans' sides assumption staked claim of tothe his presidency. legacy through the me- The measure soon dium died ofa quiet imagery: death hewhen decorated the two the confederate houses could not sealagree as onwell a asfinal the version.federal dollar. The discussion of Even18oo- as18o federal 1 established lawmakers a fun- guarded the re- damental polarity public that continuedagainst monuments to shape the and con- man-worship, local gressional debate groups for severalwholeheartedly decades campaignedas various for their own unsuccessful attempts memorials to revive to Washington. the idea of a Sometimesna- the very tional tomb were men made. who Opponents had argued clung in Congressto the against the old injunctions against whole idea"man-worship" of monuments and helped"osten- to erect splendid tation," the most ones radical in their among home them states. using Macon, the who had once same theoretical claimed, argument "monuments that an enlightened are good for nothing," ac- citizenry-created tively by education helped North and theCarolina printing to procure the best press-had made possiblemonuments statue obsolete. of Washington, "Where is from the finest sculptor in Europe. Republican inhibitions about cost and scale did not restrain the local campaign- ' Annals of Congress, 6th Cong., 2d sess., pp. 804, 800. ers. In 1816 a writer in the North-American Review, 4 Annals of Congress, 6th Cong., 2d sess., p. 875. By the time of the vote, the Latrobe commenting proposal had on been various superseded ideas by foran a Washington even grander pyramid monument proposal designed in Boston, by George frankly Dance; confessed a that big- design of his which shows two pyramids has been published in the monograph by Dorothyger was Stroud, better: George a column Dance, wasArchitect, superior to an eques- 1741x-825 (London: Faber and Faber, 1971), pl. 76a, but this may not be the final design15 Register submitted of Debates to Congress in Congress, since it22d does Cong., ist sess., pp. not correspond to the 375, verbal 1784. descriptions Attempts found to fund in the a national record of tomb were made in the debates. For the party1816, repeatedlyaffiliations inof the the 182os, voting and representa- finally in 1832, for the cen- tives, see Manning J. tennial Dauer, ofThe Washington's Adams Federalists birth. (Baltimore: For Washington's dual image Johns Hopkins University during thePress, war, 1953), see Bryan, PP- 323-25. Washington in Literature, pp. 74-82.

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trian statue because with the former "we might erect the largest and finest in the world," whereas there would be "a hundred [equestrians] to rival us."'6 Since the monument had to compete on the world stage, its proponents found it essential to discuss the European traditions, to compare types, to hold design competitions. Baltimore carried the process through to a fitting conclusion, completing a giant column in 1829 after a design by Latrobe-trained (fig. 6). In appealing for funds, the sponsors of the project were careful to clothe the enterprise in republican rhetoric; they claimed that the monument would act to reverse "the decay of that public virtue which is the only solid and natural foundation of a free government." Neil Harris has argued, on the strength -: ::: :: : of rhetoric such as this, that the monument campaigns of this period rep- resented attempts to shore up national values that were thought to be eroding in the collective pursuit of easy money and quick gain. The monuments themselves, however, testify eloquently against this thesis. It is true that Baltimore chose to depict Washington in his grand moment of republican virtue, resigning his military command; yet the act is presented as such a historical aberration that it merits elevation 220o feet off the ground, so high in fact that the pose is hardly discernible. A monu- ment that ostensibly inculcates the old ideal of self- regulation actually signals its eclipse: the ideal is now celebrated precisely because it is unattainable by mortal men. The Baltimore project testifies to the same disease of "grasping accumulation" that these monuments were allegedly trying to cure. Baltimore elevated Fig. 6. Washington'sRobert Mills, Washington achievement Monument, in Baltimore, order to elevate Md., its 1815-29.own column, (Photo, to Kirk rear Savage.)the "larg- est and finest" monument ever erected in the country. 17 Nevertheless, Harris's thesis cannot be dis- missed quite so easily. The coupling of a rhetorical 16 R. D. W. Connor, "Canova's Statue of Washington," Pub- appeal to simple republican values with a grandi- lications of the North Carolina Historical Commission, Bulletin ose and extravagant monument reflects the double No. 8 (191o), pp. 14-27; Macon quoted in Annals of Congress, standards we have seen applied to federal and local 6th Cong., 2d sess., p. 803; "Monument to Washington," North- American Review 2, no. 6 (March 1816): 338. monuments. Both inconsistencies are symptomatic 17 Sponsors' fund-raising appeal published in Port Folio, of a profound moral ambiguity underlying repub- n.s., 3, no. 6 (June 1810): 465; Neil Harris, The Artist in Ameri- licanism in America through the Jacksonian era. can Society: The Formative Years, 1790-i860 (New York: Simon The nation and its people were not content with and Schuster, 1966), pp. 193-96. It is even suggested that a real estate scheme was the original motive for the monument inthe simple values and modest ambitions imposed J. Jefferson Miller II, "The Designs for the Washington Monu- by orthodox republicanism; it was a restless society ment in Baltimore," Journal of the Society of Architectural Histo- constantly striving for more land, more wealth, rians 23, no. 1 (March 1964): 19. Another motive is suggested by Alexis de Tocqueville, who argues that in a democracy one more power. Just as Americans had not let Wash- of the few acceptable outlets for self-assertion is the public ington slumber in republican simplicity, but had monument: "In democratic communities the imagination is compressed when men consider themselves; it expands indefinitely when they think of the state," or, we might add, Tocqueville, Democracy in America, ed. Phillips Bradley, vol. 2 when they think of Washington (Alexis-Charles-Henri de[New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 19451, p. 56).

This content downloaded from 132.174.254.12 on Thu, 22 Sep 2016 13:46:16 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Washington Monument 233 competed to broadcast opportunity for a huge and ritual reaffirmation elevate of na- his reputation, so they increasingly tional faith, where competed the monument-like the na- for economic gain and wondered tion-wouldwhy be built the by the willing republican toil of a people ideal of com- munal harmony reunited was around thebecoming original values of the Revolu- ever more distant. The monuments tion. toBut Custis Washington was a lone voice and, to Watter- sharpened this so- cial tension because ston, an absurd one. his It was unrealistic ambiguous to expect standing led American aspirations citizens to come a great distancein "fortwo the purpose directions at once: backward to an ofideal throwing a spadeful republic of earth," and "as to theof stability and har- mony; forward revolutionaryto a stock, new all that remain era of them, ifof they national expansion, boundless wealth, could contrive and to get herepersonal at all, would not be able glory.'is8 Nowhere is the tension more evident than in to elevate the mass five feet in twenty years." the biggest monument campaign of all, the oneAbove all other objections, the worst feature of the that finally resulted in the national monument plan to was that it would be ugly. "No; the monument Washington that we have today. The Washington to the great founder of our independence should National Monument Society from its inception was be something that would exhibit not only the grati- actually a local movement in the guise of a national tude and veneration, but the taste and liberality of one, springing to life in the same spirit of competi- the People of this age of our republic."20 tion that animated the Baltimore project before it. Watterston's statement marks a turning point The society was founded in 1833 by a few perma- in the discussion of the national monument, for nent residents of the capital, all of whom were until in then the notion of taste had been considered one way or the other active in promoting the un-irrelevant. It is true that Macon in 18oo had ad- realized city that was still a swampy backwater. mitted that the pyramid "might indeed adorn this They intended their monument to triumph over city," but it is more significant that the aesthetic any conceivable competition: when they invited considerationde- did not even begin to answer his ob- signs in 1836 they stipulated that the monument jections to the enterprise.21 Not until after the Civil cost no less than the astonishing sum of one million War did Congress finally shift the focus of its de- dollars, all to be provided by private contributions. bate from the political meaning of the monument , the moving force behind the to the artistic merit. From 1836 on, however, the organization, stated in print exactly what he en- monument society staked its enterprise on its ex- visaged: a stack of richly ornamented temples travagant good taste. The monument would not crowned by an obelisk reaching 500 feet in eleva- only underscore the old-fashioned virtues of tion, in other words, "the highest edifice in Washington'sthe republic but, more important, also world, and the most stupendous and magnificent advance a new set of cultural pretensions whose monument ever erected to man."19 ideological fit in that republic was uncertain at best. Watterston made his suggestion to counter Thisa conflicting mixture of intentions received proposal put forth by Washington's adopted son, an especially apt expression in the design finally George Washington Parke Custis, for a burial chosen by the society in 1845, a proposal by Mills mound to be built by citizens from all over that the bore a striking similarity to the architectural country, led by elders of "revolutionary stock," fantasy already suggested by Watterston (figs. 7, 8). who would gather at the capital to donate their Mills distilled Watterston's stack of temples into a labor. Custis saw the monument enterprise assingle, an circular, Doric colonnade loo feet high, surmounted by a boo-foot decorated obelisk; the colonnade was to enclose a vast rotunda that would s8 My view of the period is indebted to Marvin Meyers, The Jacksonian Persuasion: Politics and Belief (Stanford: Stanford Uni- be a "pantheon" of revolutionary heroes repre- versity Press, 1957), esp. pp. 9-10, 22-23, 106-7. sented in murals and sculpture. As Mills himself 19 For the profile of the original members of the society, see was well aware, the Doric order had become em- Frederick L. Harvey, History of the Washington National Monu- ment and Washington National Monument Society (Washington, blematic of the republican character of Washing- D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1903), PP. 21-23, 25-26. ton-strong, simple, unaffected, almost primitive The context of the society's efforts is described in Constance M. in its straightforward accomplishment of the task Green, Washington: Village and Capital, r8oo-.878 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), pp. 170-73. Clipping from set for it. Yet in Mills's design, the Doric temple, Washington National Intelligencer, February 11, 1836, signed W- (this was a standard byline for Watterston as seen in his papers 20 Clipping, signed W-, Washington National Intelligencer, at the Library of Congress [hereafter cited as LC]). The clipping February 11, 1836. My knowledge of Custis's proposal is is in the vertical file at the Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial gleaned from Watterston's response. Public Library, Washington, D.C. 21 Annals of Congress, 6th Cong., 2d sess., p. 804-

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Fig. 8. Chs. Fenderich, certificate for contributors to the Washington National Monument Society, ca. 1846. Fig. 7. Lithograph; H. 231/4",Robert W. 171/2". (Prints and Photo- Mills, Sketch of Washington National Monu- ment, graphs, Library of Congress.)ca. 1840. Ink and watercolor; H. 23'/4", W. 15'/2". (Cartographic, National Archives.) huge When the time finallyin came, on July 4, 1848, toits own right, becomes the mere base for a massive lay the cornerstone for Mills's vast project-at the obelisk-a form already familiar in America very site L'Enfant had chosen for his pivotal as a grave marker and even as a public monument equestrian-Congressman Robert Winthrop of (at Bunker Hill), but here blown up to unprecedented Massachusetts delivered an oration that betrayed height. The iconography of repub- lican the conflict underlyingsimplicity the whole enterprise. is overwhelmed-and thus trivi- alized-by Speaking at the very beginning of the railroad era, the towering ambition of the great shaft, Winthrop compared American plannedliberty to a locomo- as the tallest structure in the world. And tive "gatheringto strength as it goes, developingreinforce new the effect, Mills had Washington appear energies to meet new exigencies, andabove bearing aloft the portico not in the manner of Cin- cinnatus its imperial train of twenty millions of people with but in a chariot led by six horses, an impe- rial a speedmotif which knows no parallel." It was a more suggestive of the triumphant progress to which the monument looked forward.22 modern image of forward progress than Mills's chariot, but a more unsettling one as well. Was the 22 The Mills design is undated and may have been con- locomotive under control? After a long speech on ceived anytime between 1836 and 1845, when on November 20 Washington's character, Winthrop turned to this the Board of Managers adopted it (Proceedings of the Board of dark question and gave an equally disturbing an- Managers, Records of the Washington National Monument So- ciety, Record Group 42, National Archives [hereafter cited as Society Records]). The traditional date of 1836, traceable to Harvey, is unfounded. The design was described in a society discussed in John Zukowsky, "Monumental American : broadside probably written by Watterston (a draft in his hand Centennial Vistas," Art Bulletin 58, no. 4 (December 1976): 576. survives in the Watterston Papers, LC) and reprinted in Har- Zukowsky does not identify the chariot driver as Washington, vey, History of the Monument, pp. 26-28. The imperial motif isbut the broadside published by the society does.

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swer. The nation Whereas was the earlier spinning populists had rejected apart;all the very "ex- tension of our ideasboundaries of a grand monument as antirepublican, and the the multiplication of our Territories" Know-Nothings brought staked their claim to Washingtona train of destructive political differences. through the very extravagance The of thelocomotive project. In Winthrop had boasted moments Mills's design they foundearlier a perfect expression seemed for to be pulling away irresistibly their ownfrom contradictory Washington's impulses toward prelap- republic, that world of stern virtuesarian "Doric" republicanism and on thesimple one hand and ambitions. Yet all Winthrop could nationalist suggest mania on the other.was They vowedsomehow to to tow re- publicanism behind: raise the monument "Let as originally us planned recognize into "the in our com- mon title to the most name remarkable monument and ever erected the to man fame of Washington, and in our common ... towering above venerationall others." It was not the build- for his example and his advice, the ing that theyall-sufficient wanted to change, only the builders. centripetal power. ... Let the column which we are about to construct They resolved to take contributions only from be at once a pledge and an emblem of perpetual "Americans," in other words, only from members union." In the end Winthrop disowned even thisof their party. But by the time they had seized the solution. Sounding a now familiar theme, he told monument, the party was passing its peak, and the Americans that they really had to build the monu- fund-raising campaign proved to be a disaster: ment in their own hearts, to make Washington's three years yielded $51.66.25 For almost twenty- republic "stand before the world in all its original five years after this debacle, the monument stood strength and beauty."23 as a pathetic marble stump in the very heart of the Mills's design and Winthrop's interpretation capital.of The Know-Nothings' failure marked a it were both ideologically problematic-implausi- turning point in the long political history of the ble efforts to build a static republican ideal into monument.the In their bold attempt to reestablish a imagery of an aggressively expansionist state. link It with Washington and the original republic, was this very combination, however, that attracted they simply revealed how distant he had become. It political enthusiasm, albeit from an unlikely and was left to the Civil War to decide which nation undesired source. On March 9, 1855, with the would inherit his unfinished column and his dim, shaft only 150 feet high and the colonnade notlegacy. even begun, the monument grounds were stormed Even before the Know-Nothings delivered and seized by members of the Know-Nothings, their a near fatal blow to the monument, the suspi- semiclandestine political party that aimed to cionrid was already beginning to emerge that the the country of Catholics and foreigners. Threat- whole enterprise was a failure. For one thing, the ened by social and economic changes beyond their critics ridiculed the design, particularly the union control, and eager to blame those changes on ofre- Greek colonnade and Egyptian obelisk. Al- cent Irish and German immigration, the ranks thoughof Mills had French precedents for just such a the Know-Nothings swelled in the early 1850s with combination-including one proposed monument native-born laborers and artisans from the cities. by Francois Joseph Bdlanger of about 18oo which They advanced themselves as the guardians of the is very close in elevation although more graceful- revolutionary spirit and the true successors criticsof in the 185os increasingly viewed the design Washington. For a brief, intoxicating period, the as a national embarrassment, unthinkable in their Know-Nothings dreamed of turning his monu- own, more "advanced" age. They compared the ment into an emblem of their own political ascen- project to a broom stuck in a handle, a rolling pin dancy, of their uncontested title to his memory.24 impaled on three sea biscuits, and other suggestive images. But there was a sense of spiritual failure too. Contributions fell far short of the fantastic 23 The oration is reprinted in Harvey, History of the Monu- ment, pp. 113-30. Congress did donate the site for the monu- sums needed, and construction proceeded fitfully. ment (after years of reluctance) but considered it a private In 185o, when the twelve-year-old Henry Brooks undertaking and refused to appropriate any funds. For a recent Adams made his first visit to Washington (later re- analysis of the cultural reaction to the railroad in America, see Leo Marx, "The Railroad-in-the-Landscape: An Iconological Reading of a Theme in American Art," Prospects to (1985): esp. 90-92. Nothingism," Journal of American History 60, no. 2 (September 24 Details of the Know-Nothing takeover and of the 1973):famous 309-31; and Jean H. Baker, Ambivalent Americans: The "Pope's stone" episode are found in Harvey, History of the Know-Nothing Monu- Party in Maryland (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Uni- ment, pp. 52-64. For more general discussion, see Michael versity F. Press, 1977), esp. pp. 30-37. Holt, "The Politics of Impatience: The Origins of Know- 25 Harvey, History of the Monument, pp. 58-64.

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rather desperate rhetoric with which some con- gressmen pleaded for federal funds to complete the obelisk when their predecessors had opposed - ...... : ':-:'' ::-:I-:I' :- : -_ I i, _-i -i: ii?i i I . i iii i---i: -:-:::'-:::::i'::;-' I:'':--i-:I::---:iii-- -:::--::- :i: -li- ii i -- : :;i:--:l:si such schemes a few decades earlier. "Complete it," one representative argued in 1874, "or look not ... :i -iii:i~ i ! i~ i ::i- ;-'-:-:-::iil:: _ i-i-iii~:iii_-~--::- i-~~:ii:iiii!-!I ll ::ii_-i~~~--~i:i~ ii-i-i::~;- -:-~ii~iii?iii i-ii-_i~: l:i, back to a noble ancestry; but confess that your na- tion is in its decadence, and that its days are al- ready numbered." Despite these vehement ap- peals, Congress rejected all efforts to finish the monument in time for the Centennial of 1876, even though it offered a rare moment to review and interpret the nation's past. There were strong voices in the press demanding that the monument be torn down or left to crumble; the New York Tribune called for the public to "give its energies instead to cleaning out morally and physically the city likewise named after the Father of His

Fig. 9. Washington Monument before completion, ca. Country.'"27 186o. (Prints and Photographs, Library of Congress: A remarkable but deceptive turn of events took Photo, attributed to .) place during the centennial year. On July 5, 1876, the two houses of Congress impulsively and unani- mously resolved "in the name of the people of the counted in his autobiography), he was struck pro- United States, at the beginning of the second cen- foundly by the sight of the unfinished marble shaft tury of the national existence, [to] assume and di- sitting in the middle of a dusty, ragged capital (fig. rect the completion of the Washington Monu- 9). And when he traveled on to Mount Vernon, he ment."28 Why the sudden turnabout? It was not was faced with a similar contradiction: the squalid because Congress had changed its attitude toward road, symbolic of everything wicked in slave- the past. Only after the anniversary of indepen- bound Virginia, led straight to the man he was dence had passed, and the country had self- taught to venerate. Although Washington's obelisk consciously stepped over the threshold from the was still going up, albeit slowly, in Adams's rec- old century into the new, did Congress seize the ollection the enterprise was already doomed-as opportunity to take action. The timing suggests if no monument could have bridged the gulf that the forces gathering on Winthrop's locomotive that separated Washington-the-eighteenth-century- had finally triumphed: the monument was revived hero from the corruption of nineteenth-century not to make sense of the past, but to launch the America.26 nation into the future. As the nation emerged from the Civil War into While the Mills project had still reflected some a disillusioning era of scandal and intrigue, the ideological seesawing between retrospective and unfinished shaft only heightened this sense of his- prospective viewpoints-between a yearning for torical disparity. The stump seemed to represent traditionala republican values and a vision of na- nation that had lost its way. The symbolic impact oftional empire-in 1876 the prospective view finally a huge, aborted monument to the founding father triumphed. By this time the ethic of enterprise and cannot be underestimated; it helps explain the material success had carried Americans so far from their old republican identity that patriot and 26 The broom image comes from James Jackson Jarves, cynic Art- alike seemed to be in essential agreement: the Hints: Architecture, Sculpture and Painting (London, 1855), age p.of Washington was dead, irretrievable. The na- 308; the rolling pin from Leslie's Illustrated 3, no. 72 (April 25, 1857): 321. Other critiques include Horatio Greenough, "Aes- thetics at Washington," in Form and Function: Remarks on Art, Design, and Architecture, ed. Harold A. Small (Berkeley: Univer- 27 Congressional Record, vol. 2 (June 4, 1874), p. 4580. New sity of California Press, 1969), pp. 23-30; and Crayon York6, pt. Daily9 Tribune, July 1, 1875, p. 6; similar sentiments are (September 1859): 282. The Belanger design is published expressed in in the Washington Chronicle, February 1, 1873 (clip- Richard G. Carrott, The Egyptian Revival: Its Sources, Monuments, ping in vertical file, Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial Public and Meaning, 1802-1858 (Berkeley: University of California Library). The climate of opinion in the 1870s is painted by Press, 1978), pl. 31. Henry Adams, The Education of HenryWinthrop in his dedication address of 1885 (Dedication of the Adams, ed. Ernest Samuels (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Washington Co., National Monument [Washington, D.C., 1885] p. 48). 1974), PP- 44-48. 28 Congressional Record, vol. 4 (July 5, 1876), p. 4376.

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tion could unify critics around of the 1 85os had objectedWashington's mainly to the com- monument only after dismissing bination of obelisk the and colonnade, question the criticism it had so insis- tently posed, the two decadesquestion later zeroed in on ofthe shaft his itself. The legacy. Washing- ton no longer mattered, men of culture perceived not it not onlyeven as a product in of his own monu- ment. From this the point artistic dark ages on, but also ashe quintessential dropped low out of the debate, only to reappear art, representative of an trivializedillegitimate and threaten- in perfunctory appeals for a "fitting" ing vernacular culture.or The"worthy" obelisk's "plainness memorial.2" As a consequence, and height," the American question Architect and Building of News how to com- plete the monument sneered, "will becamedoubtless assert itself anto the commonaesthetic problem, the province of "menmind as a clear achievementof taste." (in the vernacular, It a was these men who took the most big thing)." active "Brutally, from interest its mere size," wrote both in Congress and in the press, critic Henrythey Van Brunt, who summoning setan image thatthe terms of the debate. The participation evokes the specter of the ofother Americaany rising such to group as the Know-Nothings makewith itself heard, an"[the obelisk] explicit must force itself political agenda was unthinkable. upon Yet the attention the of thelanguage beholder." Shrinking of taste which dominated the new from those discussion brutal realities of the vernacular, disguised cul- a political subtext. When the tivated critics minds such as Van Brunt'sof insteadthe de- 187os called for the monument to be manded "characteristically "elegant reserve and studious refine- American," they had in mind ment"; the a unadorned particular and unelaborated obelisk America defined by "culture"-in simply Alan did not require Trachtenberg's the privileged skills of cul- words, "a privileged domain ture to ofappreciate refinement, and therefore could not legiti- aesthetic sensi- bility, and higher mately learning."represent America. If, as the American And Ar- as Trachtenberg has argued, this definitionchitect argued, the monument of were somethingculture carried a dis- tinctly political more message. like Trajan's Column, "crowdedCulture with evi- represented no less than "an official dence of human Americanthought, skill, and love," then version"it of reality" which shielded Americans from other, more would be a work of art, a true monument, a denk- troubling realities, the realities of government mal or think-token as the Germans call it."31 scandal, the decline of rural America, the rise of While the critics were united in the belief that urban poverty-everything that made the dispar- the nation's most conspicuous monument must ad- ity with the original republic so painfully apparent. vance the claims of their official culture, they were High culture, and the monument it hoped to by no means agreed on how to accomplish this. create, would proclaim these realities "uncharac- The most immediate problem centered on creden- teristic," not truly American; they belonged in- tials. The architectural press naturally maintained stead to a netherworld of vulgarity and common that only an architect was qualified to redesign the labor.30 partial shaft, while the sculptors' lobby had its own For the men of culture of the 1 87os the obelisk supporters, particularly in Congress. But a deeper became a cause clkbre because it touched their problem afflicted even the most widely trained anxieties about this "other" America. While the candidate for the job: there was no legitimate ar- tistic tradition with which to represent American culture. To meet the demands of their own cul- 29 Typical of the new attitude toward Washington is an edi- torial in American Architect and Building News 2, no. 103 (Decem- ture, designers had to raid other cultures. When ber 15, 1877): 397, which says, "no doubt an obelisk is consistent they began to produce alternative designs for the with Washington's character, and so, we may say, are a pair of cavalry boots"; the important point was that a better "form" shaft, some artists tried to incorporate indigenous could be found than either. In my discussion of prospective models from native American civilizations, but and retrospective viewpoints, I am adapting Erwin Panofsky's most borrowed from a bewildering array of Euro- terminology from his Tomb Sculpture (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1964). pean architectural prototypes-from Italian Ro- 30 Alan Trachtenberg, The Incorporation of America: Culture manesque to English Gothic to beaux-arts tinged and Society in the Gilded Age (New York: Hill and Wang, 1982), by "some of the better Hindu pagodas" (figs. pp. 143-44. The phrase "characteristically American" is drawn from a critical piece by James Jackson Jarves, "Washington's Monument," New York Times, March 17, 1879, p. 5, and it is 3' American Architect and Building News 4, no. 135 (July 27, echoed by numerous writers including Henry Van Brunt, Wil- 1878): 25. The criticism contains many references to the "peril" liam Wetmore Story, and the editors of American Architect, who the obelisk poses to the nation's reputation, the impending made their meaning plain in calling for a monument "more in "calamity," the national "emergency." Henry Van Brunt, "The accordance with our intelligence and our culture" (American Washington Monument," American Art Review 1, pt. 1 (1879): Architect and Building News 4, no. 138 [August 17, 1878]: 54). 12, 8.

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10, 11, 12). The whole problem of evolving a "national style," which plagued the culture cam- paigners of the late nineteenth century, was here compressed into one work. Critics could not decide between the various alternatives; they could quib- ble here and there on "technical" principles of de- sign, but none of them could articulate an aesthetic or iconographic basis for determining the "charac- teristically American" beyond some rather elusive visual ideals. Van Brunt, for example, seemed to be searching for a middle ground between the raw "virility" of American vernacular culture and the "effeminacy" of European high culture, but he could not visualize it until he saw the of the Chicago school in the next decade.32

The artists and their J&AOpatrons were also working at cross purposes. When Congress decided to ap- propriate money to complete the monument, it delegated the responsibility for construction to a joint commission of its own appointing, but it never made clear who had authority to choose the design. Instead of proposing a national competi- tion as a way of achieving at least a ceremonial unity of decision, Congress sat by while a few indi- vidual members jockeyed in and out of the public eye to advance their own candidates. The most ac- tive member, a senator named Justin Morrill who was involved in numerous public art projects, strung along several Fig. io. John candidates Frazer, proposal atfor completiononce, and of Wash- the infighting among ington those Monument, candidates ca. 1879. From was Walter intense, Montgomery, as their voluminous ed., Americancorrespondence Art and American toArt MorrillCollections, vol. and 1 other potential (Boston:allies E.demonstrates. W. Walker, 1889), p. 360.Ultimately (Prints and Photo- the graphs, Library of Congress.) congressional committees in charge became "so an- noyed by Architects and interested parties" that they refused to make any decisions at all.33 Into this vacuum stepped Lt. Col. Thomas Casey of the Army Corps of Engineers, the man hired by the joint commission to supervise the con- struction of the monument. Casey was an engineer with vision. While deftly protesting to artists and 32 Henry Van Brunt, "The Washington reporters Monument," alike that Amer- he had no authority to design ican Art Review 1, pt. 2 (1879): 65, 61; his article provides a the monument, he did precisely that-in the pro- broad survey of the alternative proposals for finishing the par- tial shaft. For the evolution of cesshis criticism, completely see the revisingintroductory the terms of the enter- essay by William A. Coles in Architectureprise. Casey and hadSociety: in Selectedmind a new kind of denkmal Essays of Henry Van Brunt (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univer- sity Press, Belknap Press, 1969). inconceivable to the culture campaigners: a tech- 33 Morrill was in frequent contact nological with expatriate marvel sculptors equipped with a passenger Story and Larkin Mead; Story's proposal and for electric a Florentine- lights yet disguised as the Venetian tower came very close most to being ancient accepted, of forms,while Mead ruthlessly simple and her- pushed two plans at once, one with the obelisk and one without. Meanwhile Morrill was also meticallyworking with sealed. architect Casey Albert refined his vision over sev- Noerr on a completely different eral proposal. years, Extensiverevealing correspon- it little by little in obscure tech- dence survives in the Justin Morrill nical Papers,reports. LC, Generally,as well as in thehe couched his proposals papers of , president of the joint com- mission. Corcoran to Story, Marchas engineering 13, 1879, Corcoran solutions Papers, rather than design sug- LC. gestions; thus the joint commission could safely

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Fig. 12. Proposal for completion of Washington Monu- ment, attributed to Arthur Mathews, ca. 1879. From Walter Montgomery, ed., American Art and American Art Collections, vol. 1 (Boston: E. W. Walker, 1889), p. 365- (Prints and Photographs, Library of Congress.) I k -

claim that it was not "designing" the monument, only building it.34 Since the shaft was begun as an obelisk, the commission decided that it would continue build- ing the obelisk until told otherwise by Congress. Initially, in 1878, Casey redesigned Mills's obelisk as a 525-foot tower with an iron-and-glass top.

Fre .' When in 1882 the joint commission could no longer put off a sculptor who had designed a series Fig. 11. M. of P.bas-reliefs Hapgood,to decorate the base of the shaft, proposal for completion of Washington Monument, ca. 1879. From Walter Mont- gomery, ed., American Art and American Art Collections, vol. 1 (Boston: 34 Many of E.the details ofW. Casey's involvement Walker, are described 1889), p. 363. (Prints and Photographs, in Louis Torres,Library "To the Immortal Name and Memory ofof George Congress.) Washington": The Corps of Engineers and the Construction of the Washington Monument (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, n.d.); however, Torres misses the covert aspect of Casey's activity. Casey's public posture of no authority is seen, for example, in Casey to Mead, July 25, 1882, Society Records, and in a newspaper interview with the Wash- ington Evening Star, , 1885, p. 3-

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Casey confessed Cooper in had said a was "notreport liable to the details that of he wanted no such ornamentation to disturb the bare surface of his criticism." The plain, towering shaft was in its own obelisk. The commission conveniently decided waythat unarguable; it simply could not be subjected to it had no authority to ornament the obelisk, the kindso of critical scrutiny that the men of culture Casey's wish prevailed. Casey then unfolded believed his a true work of art demanded. Casey in own plan to strip off Mills's Egyptian ornament effect was proposing a new way of experiencing a above the entrance doors, fill in the doors with monumental work of art, in which power becomes marble of a matching bond, and create an invisible paramount-the power the structure at once holds underground entrance. This the commission de- over the spectator and shares with him. Casey's cided was within its authority to approve, appar- inviolable obelisk (even more so if we imagine it ently because the plan had no "artistic" elements.35 closed with its original marble door and shutters) For reasons of safety Casey had to scuttle the seems to ward off the spectator, to deny even the underground entrance, but he created the same possibility of entrance; the phallic force of the effect by outfitting the only remaining opening in shaft serves what the ancient Greeks called an apo- the base with a marble door, which when closed tropaic function, a warning to all comers. At the made the entrance unnoticeable. He also changed base of the monument there is nothing on the the plan for the top of the obelisk from his original blank faces of the shaft to give it human scale, iron-and-glass observatory to a more steeply point- nothing to interrupt the soaring lines that sweep ing marble pyramidion, ostensibly because the the eye upward to indefinite heights. The tiny door combining of different surface materials under the at the bottom, virtually crushed by the shaft tow- first plan would have caused engineering difficul- ering over it, is all that yields-but what it does ties. Casey used this pretext to complete his own yield is exhilarating: an inner sanctum ruled by aesthetic vision, allowing only two small openings technology where the visitor is ushered by machine in each face of the pyramidion-all fitted with spe- power to an unrivaled height and a dizzying pros- cially designed marble shutters that (like the door) pect. From bottom to top the monument asserts its created the illusion of unbroken .36 strength, and yet the visitor thrills with the illusion. Backed by a joint commission that wanted re- of heroic command. At the Baltimore monument, sults fast, Casey's strategy worked beautifully. the spectator could only stare up at the figure of Since design in effect meant "decoration," Casey Washington high above; in the nation's capital, the could continue to maintain that he was avoiding visitor can take the place of the hero himself and, design even as he put the finishing touches on his from the summit, can survey the whole apparatus monument. Fittingly, called the of national power spread out below.37 final result in 1884 "undesigned." Casey's obelisk If we recall the twin poles of federalist and re- was oddly reminiscent of the old Doric ideal of publican commemoration with which the debate Washington's character, which James Fenimore began-the "sublime" monument that awes the people and the participatory monument created by

"5 Proceedings of the joint commission, March 29, April 24, the people-we see that Casey's obelisk rather bril- 1882, Society Records. At this point the joint commission, on liantly synthesizes the two, or more precisely, tran- Casey's recommendation, suggested that Congress appoint a scends them. The Washington Monument both separate commission to design a "terrace" below the shaft, which could incorporate all the desired ornamentation and set- overpowers and empowers, first diminishing the tle the question once and for all. Congress again failed to act, visitor into insignificance and then raising him sky- however, and the joint commission eventually approved Casey's high like a hero. In more ways than one, that preferred plan for a natural lawn terrace-on the grounds that it was less expensive (Casey was adept at making his own aes- frightening and exhilarating image from Win- thetic choices compelling for reasons of economy) (Proceedings throp's imagination-the locomotive-has become of the joint commission, December 18, 1884, Society Records; a mirror not only of the forces behind the monu- Evening Star, February 21, 1885). s6 Casey to Brig. Gen. Horatio Gouverneur Wright, Janu- ary 19, 1884, Society Records. Some histories of the monument 37 "The Washington Monument," New York Times, Decem- credit George Perkins Marsh with the "design" of the final ber 7, 1884, p. 8; James Fenimore Cooper, Notions of the Ameri- form. Marsh was an antiquarian and diplomat living in Italy cans Picked Up by a Travelling Bachelor, vol. 2 (New York, 1828), who provided measurements of ancient obelisks and other aes- p. 193. The memorial stones on the interior wall, accessible thetic suggestions, including the idea of window coverings to from the stairs that wind around the elevator shaft, provide match the marble. There is no doubt that he influenced Casey, another component of the experience. Mostly donated by states but Casey's vision was ultimately his own: Marsh approved of and cities, often using local rock, these blocks are inscribed and ornamenting the shaft and had no interest in the monument's sometimes sculpted; they link the monument to other places technological aspect; see Marsh's letters printed in Harvey, His- throughout the country and thereby add another dimension to tory of the Monument, pp. 299-302. the commanding prospect seen from the summit.

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ment but also of the monument itself. Both the Van Brunt, who was forced to acknowledge the railroad and the obelisk were monuments to "vast amount of thought and skill" with which American technology, or, in nineteenth-century Casey finished the shaft. Not only was the obelisk a terms, to "ingenuity" and "modern skill," and monument both to be admired by the common man, but were powerful symbols of the national destiny, it also orrepresented an achievement that could be became so. The New York Times, after blasting more the easily attributed to the common man, to "the obelisk in December 1884, reversed itself only people." two While art was appropriated by an exclu- months later for the monument's dedication, sive when cultural sphere, which claimed that achieve- an editorial admitted that there was "something ment could result only from formal training and characteristically American" in raising the developedtallest sensibility, the technological myth of the structure on earth, towering above even "the era-demonstrated, high- for example, in the legend of est cathedral spires designed by the devout Thomas and Edison-saw progress and invention as daring architects of the Middle Ages." There the wasachievement of self-taught, self-made men, ex- also a parallel between the monument's turbulent emplars of the old republican traits of indepen- history and the country's "long period of troubledence and natural genius. It did not really matter and tumult": all the time that the monument stood that Casey failed to fit this profile (his personal unfinished it was "awaiting the destiny of the Na- background was rarely discussed, perhaps because tion." Now the monument's fate and the nation's he seemed much more a man of culture than a self- fate had converged in "a new era of hope and made independent). The important point was that progress."38 his work was as much "a monument to the skill and And where did the individual stand? Here enterprise of the American people as to the nobil- again the technological monument offered itya pow- and name which it perpetuates." This point was erful metaphor, an image of the individual emphasized caught over and again in newspaper accounts and swept up in the nation's progress, riding that it lavished to print on every ingenious feat from new heights of personal freedom and happiness. the foundations to the marble shutters to "the most The image was so appealing that Harper's Weekly perfect electrical conductor known to science."40 could imagine the experience even before theIt is not only ironic but also somehow troubling monument opened. Harper's returned to thatthe aold monument designed covertly, against enor- comparison between the obelisk and Trajan's mous Col- opposition, should so neatly reconcile so umn, but this time the column came out the manyloser competing ideals-ancient tradition and because it lacked an elevator. Whereas the visitor modern technology, republican values and na- to Trajan's Column could ascend only "by a weary tional progress, communal harmony and individ- flight of steps," in Washington's obelisk he would ual enterprise. These are the conflicts of Washing- be "seized upon by the genius of steam, and raised ton's legacy-whether his name was mentioned or ... in a comfortable elevator almost to the copper not-that had confused and divided earlier build- apex at its top." Once at the top the visitor would ers, campaigners, and critics. In one sense we "look down upon a land of freedom," home to might think of Casey's blank shaft as the ultimate "scenes of bitter struggle in the past, and now the monument to Washington because in its apparent quiet city, hid in groves and gardens, sleeping in simplicity it seems to formalize the long-awaited the shades of perpetual peace.""39 The freedom resolution. But the actual experience of the monu- and tranquility of the land below belonged by right ment challenges the nature of this resolution. The to the visitor above, privileged as he was to survey obelisk is in no formal sense a monument of heal- the whole and to find his place within it. ing or reconciliation. In contrast to the more re- This monument of might and progress had so much immediate resonance that it captured the ad- 40 Henry Van Brunt, "The Washington Monument," in miration even of its critics. Instead of demanding American Art and American Art Collections, ed. Walter Montgom- ery, vol. 1 (Boston, 1889), p. 355; Trachtenberg, Incorporation, special cultural skills to appreciate, the monument pp. 65-66; American Architect and Building News 17, no. 479 offered an image and an experience of much (February 28, 1885): 102. Although the article was not written wider appeal-one that touched even a man like by the editors, its very appearance in American Architect indi- cates a dramatic shift in the climate of opinion. The sentiment is echoed almost word for word in Van Brunt's final remarks on the monument in American Art and Art Collections, 1:368. Leslie's 38 "The Washington Monument," New York Times, February Illustrated 59, no. 1,526 (December 20, 1884): 278. For other 22, 1885, p. 6. descriptions of the monument's "ingenuity," see Washington s9 Eugene Lawrence, "The Washington Monument," Har- Evening Star, December 6, 1884, February 21, 1885; Washington per's Weekly 28, no. 1458 (November 29, 1884): 789. Post, February 22, 1885; and many other newspaper accounts.

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ger handle (fig. 13). The image of a dagger thrust in the air stands in stark contrast to the feelings of "peace and amity" that the monument was sup- posedly inspiring after the nation's "long night of disunion."41 This disturbing image might make us wonder now, as Winthrop seemed to wonder in his difficult speech of 1848, whether the forces represented by this monument are really under control, and, if so, who is engineering them. Is the engineer in fact "the people"? The monument's answer is not so reassuring, neither in its history nor in its realiza- tion. Casey is hardly the appropriate archetype, the process he commandeered hardly democratic. And as much as his obelisk still seems to belong to us, as much as the experience of heroic command ij; seems to be our own, the monument continually N7" ?44r?:_--:-:~-;i~--ji? challenges us with its own power, within and with- out. Try as we will, we cannot know what authority it represents, or to what end it is represented. In the century since its completion, Washing- ton's monument has lost much of the symbolic ap- A '..... peal it once held; the , erected only a year later, has easily surpassed the monu- ment in the national imagination. Recently the one-hundredth anniversary of the obelisk was marked with relatively little fanfare, while the cen- tennial of Miss Liberty became one of the most extravagant spectacles of our time. The uncer- Fig. 13. Invitation to the dedication ceremonies of the tainty of Washington's "example" still haunts his Washington Monument. From Dedication of the Washing- monument. Instead of resolving the issue, Casey's ton National Monument (Washington, D.C.: Government obelisk evaded it; even as the monument pro- Printing Office, 1885), frontispiece. (Collection of Kirk Savage.) claimed allegiance to American ideals, its assertion of political and technological might undermined a most cherished ideal-that of the self-reliant, self- cent Vietnam memorial, it does not open its arms regulating individual who stands, with Fred ric- to visitors, offer them refuge, encourage them to Auguste Bartholdi's statue, at the mythic core of reflect. If Casey's monument did indeed resolve our republic. If the obelisk is indeed a "mighty conflict, it was a resolution more by sheer force sign" of the national destiny, its implications leave than by symbolic embrace. It is impossible to know us as much in doubt as in hope. Ironically the how the monument was truly experienced at the blank marble walls of this huge memorial resist time, but there is reason to believe that despite all patriotic promotion and mythmaking and force us the rhetoric of harmony the monument had a back on the old questions about our republic. more militant impact. In the engraving done for the monument's dedication, the obelisk is set like a sharply pointed blade into the cross arms of a dag- 41 Boston Evening Transcript, February 24, 1885, p. 7-

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