The first book to tell the complete story of Rushmore.
Now in paperback, The Carving of Mount Rushmore tells the complete story of the largest and certainly the most spectacular sculpture in existence. More than 60 black-and-white photographs offer unique views of this gargantuan effort, and author Rex Alan smith--a man born and raised within sight of Rushmore--recounts with the sensitivity of a native son the ongoing struggles of sculptor Gutzon Borglum and his workers.
Other Details: 66 illustrations 416 pages 6 x 6" Published 1994
When obstacles arose or money ran out, as both were always doing, time and again the machinery was covered, the work was abandoned, and the mountain was returned to silence. And each time this happened there was ample reason to believe the project could not be revived again . . . ever.
Eventually, the time did come when the work had to be permanently shut down and the carving left uncompleted according to its original design, and it happened for a reason that the builders could neither have avoided nor foreseen. Although the first World War was supposed to have made the world "safe for democracy" it had not done so. By the end of the 1930s, the free nations of Europe again were fighting for their very survival, and the United States was attempting both to supply them with the arms they needed and to rearm itself as well. Continued building of the monument that had come to be called "The Shrine of Democracy" was forced to give way to the building of what President Franklin Roosevelt called "The Arsenal of Democracy"; the nation could not afford to invest in both.
All together, then, the story of Mount Rushmore Memorial is not a simple story of a sculptor and a mountain. Rather, it is a complex story of men and their times--of unusual men and unusual times combined in a sometimes caustic but always creative chemistry that ultimately produced something far different from what had been originally intended. For, in the beginning presidents had not been the intended subject, Borglum had not been the intended sculptor, and Rushmore had not been the intended mountain.
To understand how it all actually happened, the story must be told from its beginning--twelve hundred miles from Mount Rushmore, in Georgia in the fall of 1923.
"Rex Alan Smith has written an entertaining account of the memorial and the men who made it. He has been able to preserve a great deal of the local lore in pungent first-hand detail." --The New York Times
"In a twangy, storytelling style Smith draws us a picture of Midwestern practicality shaking hands with dreams of glory in a great American adventure in art; the photos alone are worth the price of admission." --Artforum
"I had seen the photographs and the drawings of this great work. And yet, until about ten minutes ago I had no conception of its magnitude, its permanent beauty and its importance." --Franklin Delano Roosevelt, upon first viewing Mount Rushmore, August 30, 1936
Author Biography: Rex Alan Smith is also the author of Moon of Popping Trees, the story of the Wounded Knee Massacre, and the co-author of Abbeville's One Last Look. He lives in Box Elder, South Dakota.
