CAPTAIN TUCKER BORGLUM VINTAGE 1925 ORIGINAL CONFEDERATE PHOTO STONE MOUNTAIN For Sale
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CAPTAIN TUCKER BORGLUM VINTAGE 1925 ORIGINAL CONFEDERATE PHOTO STONE MOUNTAIN:
$285.95
CAPTAIN J.C. TUCKER VINTAGE ORIGINAL PHOTO FROM 1925 MEASURING 6X8 INCHES SUPERINTENDENT FOR GUTZON BORGLUM AT STONE MOUNTAIN WHO IS BEING SOUGHT WITH THE SCULPTOR ON THE WARRANT CHARGING MALISCIOUS MISCHIEF IN THE DESCRUCTION OF THE MODELS AND PLANS FOLLOWING MR. BORGLUM\'S DISMISSAL.Gutzon Borglum, famed sculptor (TIME, Mar. 2), hurried along a stony path, mallet in hand. At his heels skulked one J. C. Tucker, accessory. Wrath was printed upon the Borglum countenance, sympathy upon that of Tucker. At the end of the path, they came to a small hut-the studio wherein, for many months, Sculptor Borglum has worked with plans, models of the relief of Generals Jackson, Lee and their armies which is to be chiseled into the rock at Stone Mountain, Atlanta, as a memorial to the arms of the South
.destroying fact ... no funds . . association has shrunk. . . .\" Such phrases came, last week, from the lips of Gutzon Borglum, famed sculptor. He, glum, was deploring the withdrawal of public support from the great memorial to the Confederacy which, under his direction, has been rising on the face of Stone Mountain, Ga. (TIME, Aug. 13, 1923; May 26, 1924). Those two proud gentlemen, Generals Lee and Jackson, stand raised among their armies on the mountain\'s craggy front, half- formed. In the U. S. mint, 5,000,000 half-dollar coins, with Lee and Jackson riding their horses across one side...
From Atlanta came a statement of Colonel Hollins Randolph, President of the Memorial Association. Said he: \"For more than a year the greatest problem of the Stone Mountain Memorial has been the sculptor, Gutzon Borglum. . . . He loafed on the job. . . . It has been extremely difficult to get him to do any work at all on the mountain, notwithstanding the large amounts of money paid him. His main desire seems to be to get his name in the newspapers as often as possible...
GutZOn Borglum Indicted. In Stone Mountain Dis.) 1\"\"?Sculptor Is Charged‘ WithLarceny for. ModelDestruction.Decatur. 63.. Sept. 24 (All).—Gufizon Borglum, former sculptor forthe stone Mountain ConfederateMemorial. was indicted by a. DeKaibCounty grand Jury September 9. itwas learned today. on charges ormalacious mischief. and was chargedJointly with J. G. Tucker. in twocounts \'of simple larceny and larcenyfrom the House tor-the destructionor his models for the monument in1925.The indictments are similar tothose. returned in 1925 which werenone pressed in June or this year.Borgium is charged with having removedhis models for the equestrianfigures from a building owned bythe Stone Mountain ConfederateMonumental Association and havingdestroyed them. The indictment set;BORGLUM INDICTED0N SEVERAL COUNTSCONTINUED FROM PAGE \'7.forth that the models were valued at $700.The models were destroyed by BorglumIn February. 1925. the indict—ments set forth. after he had beendismissed as sculptor for the 11550--clation and August. Lukeman, present‘scuDlepdteorS. memitphl.osyoeldic. itor for the StoneMountain circuit. said today he hadconsented to none press the indictmentsagainst Borglum on being persuadedthat the completion 0; themonument depended upon the am!-cable adjustment or dm’ereuces. butwhen it appeared to him that allLitigation had\'not been dropped hepresented the facts to the grand Juryagain.John Gutzon de la Mothe Borglum (March 25, 1867 – March 6, 1941) was an American sculptor most widely known for the colossal sculpture Mount Rushmore National Memorial. He was also associated with various other public works of art, including Stone Mountain in Georgia, the statue of Union General Phillip Sheridan in Washington, D.C., as well as a bust of Abraham Lincoln which was exhibited in the White House by Theodore Roosevelt[5] and which is now held in the United States Capitol crypt in Washington, D.C.[6]Contents1 Early life2 Elizabeth Janes Putnam Borglum3 New York City4 Mary Montgomery Williams Borglum5 Public life6 Monuments6.1 Stone Mountain6.2 Mount Rushmore6.3 Other works7 Death8 In popular culture9 Publications10 Gallery11 See also12 References13 Other sources14 External linksEarly lifeThe son of Danish immigrants, Gutzon Borglum was born in 1867 in St. Charles in what was then Idaho Territory. Borglum was a child of Mormon polygamy. His father, Jens Møller Haugaard Børglum (1839–1909), came from the village of Børglum in northwestern Denmark. He had two wives when he lived in Idaho: Gutzon\'s mother, Christina Mikkelsen Børglum (1847–1871), and her sister Ida, who was Jens\'s first wife.[7] Jens Borglum decided to leave Mormonism and moved to Omaha, Nebraska where polygamy was both illegal and taboo.[8] Jens Borglum worked mainly as a woodcarver before leaving Idaho to attend the Saint Louis Homeopathic Medical College[9] in St. Louis, Missouri. At this point \"Jens and Christina divorced, the family left the Mormon church, and Jens, Ida, their children, and Christina\'s two sons, Gutzon and Solon, moved to St. Louis, where Jens earned a medical degree. (Jens) then moved the family to Nebraska, where he became a county doctor\".[10][11] Upon his graduation from the Missouri Medical College in 1874, Dr. Borglum moved the family[10] to Fremont, Nebraska, where he established a medical practice. Gutzon Borglum remained in Fremont until 1882, when his father enrolled him in St. Mary\'s College, Kansas.[12]
After a brief stint at Saint Mary\'s College, Gutzon Borglum moved to Omaha, Nebraska, where he apprenticed in a machine shop and graduated from Creighton Preparatory School.
Elizabeth Janes Putnam BorglumBorglum\'s wife, Elizabeth Janes, was born in Racine, Wisconsin on December 21, 1848.[13][14] She studied art and music in Boston, New York, and Paris. Her marriage to J.W. Putnam ended in divorce. She taught music in Milwaukee, then moved to San Francisco in 1881, studying art at the School of Design under Virgil Williams and L. P. Latimer,[15][16] moving to Los Angeles, California in 1884, and the next year began art study with William Keith. In 1885, she met Gutzon Borglum, who was a student of Keith.[17][18][19] In 1889 in Los Angeles, she married Borglum, who was her pupil and 19 years younger.[20] The Borglums spent the next 10 years traveling widely, studying and exhibiting in Europe. Borglum was trained in Paris at the Académie Julian, where he came to know Auguste Rodin, and was influenced by Rodin\'s impressionistic light-catching surfaces. Borglum\'s works were accepted to the 1891 and the 1892 Paris Salons. In Paris, Elizabeth studied with Felix Hildago. Elizabeth took part in the 1892 Columbus Centennial Exhibition in Spain. A return trip to California proved to be ill-timed, as the state was in the throes of a financial depression. In 1893, they purchased a home, \"El Rosario\", in Sierra Madre, California. In 1896, Gutzon and Elizabeth went back to Europe, this time to London.[21] In London, she studied with California painter Emil Carlsen. Due to marital problems, she returned to southern California in 1902, while Borglum was living in England.[20] After she and Borglum separated in 1903 and divorced in 1908, Elizabeth stayed at \"El Rosario\".[22][23][24][25][26][27][28] She continued her art career, painting and teaching and taking classes from J. Foxcroft Cole. In 1915, she moved to Venice, California,[29] dying there on May 21, 1922. Elizabeth Borglum\'s work is rooted in the Tonalist-Barbizon esthetic.[30]
New York CityBack in the U.S. in New York City, he sculpted saints and apostles for the new Cathedral of St. John the Divine in 1901; in 1906 he had a group sculpture accepted by the Metropolitan Museum of Art[31]— the first sculpture by a living American the museum had ever purchased—and made his presence further felt with some portraits. He also won the Logan Medal of the Arts. His reputation soon surpassed that of his younger brother Solon Borglum, already an established sculptor.
Mary Montgomery Williams BorglumBorglum married Mary Montgomery Williams, on May 20, 1909, with whom he had three children,[7] including a son, Lincoln, and a daughter, Mary Ellis (Mel) Borglum Vhay (1916–2002).
Public lifeBorglum was active in the committee that organized the New York Armory Show of 1913, the birthplace of modernism in American art. By the time the show was ready to open, however, Borglum had resigned from the committee, feeling that the emphasis on avant-garde works had co-opted the original premise of the show and made traditional artists like himself look provincial. He moved into an estate in Stamford, Connecticut[32] in 1914 and lived there for 10 years.
Borglum was an active member of the Ancient Free and Accepted Masons (the Freemasons), raised in Howard Lodge #35, New York City, on June 10, 1904, and serving as its Worshipful Master 1910–11. In 1915, he was appointed Grand Representative of the Grand Lodge of Denmark near the Grand Lodge of New York. He received his Scottish Rite Degrees in the New York City Consistory on October 25, 1907.[33]
While it has been claimed that Borglum was a member of the Ku Klux Klan.[34], an article in the Smithsonian Magazine denies that there is proof that he officially joined the KKK.[35] That said, he became \"deeply involved in Klan politics\", attending Klan rallies and serving on Klan committees.[36]
In 1925, having only completed the head of Robert E. Lee, Borglum was dismissed from the Stone Mountain project, with some holding that it came about due to infighting within the KKK, with Borglum involved in the strife.[37] Later, he stated \"I am not a member of the Kloncilium, nor a knight of the KKK,\" but Howard Shaff and Audrey Karl Shaff claim that \"that was for public consumption.\"[38] The museum at Mount Rushmore displays a letter to Borglum from D.C. Stephenson, the infamous Klan Grand Dragon who later was convicted of the rape and murder of Madge Oberholtzer. The 8x10 foot portrait contains the inscription \"To my good friend Gutzon Borglum, with the greatest respect.\" Correspondence from Borglum to Stephenson during the 1920s detailed a deep racist conviction in Nordic moral superiority and strict immigration policies.[39]
Monuments
General Philip Sheridan, sculpted by Borglum in 1908, in Washington, D.C.In 1925, the sculptor moved to Texas to work on the monument to trail drivers commissioned by the Trail Drivers Association. He completed the model in 1925, but due to lack of funds it was not cast until 1940, and then was only a fourth its originally planned size. It stands in front of the Texas Pioneer and Trail Drivers Memorial Hall next to the Witte Museum in San Antonio. Borglum lived at the historic Menger Hotel, which in the 1920s was the residence of a number of artists. He subsequently planned the redevelopment of the Corpus Christi waterfront; the plan failed,[why?] although a model for a statue of Christ intended for it was later modified by his son and erected on a mountaintop in South Dakota. While living and working in Texas, Borglum took an interest in local beautification. He promoted change and modernity, although he was berated by academicians.[40]
A fascination with gigantic scale and themes of heroic nationalism suited his extroverted personality. His head of Abraham Lincoln, carved from a six-ton block of marble, was exhibited in Theodore Roosevelt\'s White House and can be found in the United States Capitol Crypt in Washington, D.C. A \"patriot,\" believing that the \"monuments we have built are not our own,\" he looked to create art that was \"American, drawn from American sources, memorializing American achievement,\" according to a 1908 interview.[citation needed] Borglum was highly suited to the competitive environment surrounding the contracts for public buildings and monuments, and his public sculptures are found all around the United States.
In 1908, Borglum won a competition for an equestrian statue of the Civil War General Philip Sheridan to be placed in Sheridan Circle in Washington, D.C. A second version of General Philip Sheridan was erected in Chicago, Illinois, in 1923. Winning this competition was a personal triumph for him because he won out over sculptor J.Q.A. Ward, a much older and more established artist and one whom Borglum had clashed with earlier in regard to the National Sculpture Society. At the unveiling of the Sheridan statue, one observer, President Theodore Roosevelt (whom Borglum was later to include in the Mount Rushmore portrait group), declared that it was \"first rate\"; a critic wrote that \"as a sculptor Gutzon Borglum was no longer a rumor, he was a fact.\" (Smith:see References)[full citation needed]
Stone MountainMain articles: Stone Mountain § Confederate Memorial, and Stone Mountain Memorial half dollar
Stone Mountain Memorial Half Dollar, 1925 (design by Borglum)Borglum was initially involved in the carving of Stone Mountain in Georgia. Borglum\'s nativist stances made him seem an ideologically sympathetic choice to carve a memorial to heroes of the Confederate States of America, planned for Stone Mountain, Georgia. In 1915, coinciding with the Klan-glorifying, highly successful The Birth of a Nation, he was approached by the United Daughters of the Confederacy with a project for sculpting a 20-foot (6 m) high bust of General Robert E. Lee on the mountain\'s 800-foot (240 m) rockface. Borglum accepted, but told the committee, \"Ladies, a twenty-foot head of Lee on that mountainside would look like a postage stamp on a barn door.\"[41]
Borglum\'s ideas eventually evolved into a high-relief frieze of Lee, Jefferson Davis, and Stonewall Jackson riding around the mountain, followed by a legion of artillery troops. Borglum agreed to include a Ku Klux Klan altar in his plans for the memorial to acknowledge a request of Helen Plane in 1915, who wrote to him: \"I feel it is due to the KKK that saved us from Negro domination and carpetbag rule, that it be immortalized on Stone Mountain\".[37]
After a delay caused by World War I, Borglum and the newly chartered Stone Mountain Confederate Monumental Association set to work on this monument, the largest ever attempted. Many difficulties slowed progress, some because of the sheer scale involved. After finishing the detailed model of the carving, Borglum was unable to trace the figures onto the massive area on which he was working, until he developed a gigantic magic lantern to project the image onto the side of the mountain.
Carving officially began on June 23, 1923, with Borglum making the first cut. At Stone Mountain he developed sympathetic connections with the reorganized Ku Klux Klan, who were major financial backers of the monument. Lee\'s head was unveiled on Lee\'s birthday January 19, 1924, to a large crowd, but soon thereafter Borglum was increasingly at odds with the officials of the organization. His domineering, perfectionist, authoritarian manner brought tensions to such a point that in March 1925 Borglum smashed his clay and plaster models. He left Georgia permanently, his tenure with the organization over. None of his work remains, as it was all blasted off the mountain\'s face for the work of Borglum\'s replacement Henry Augustus Lukeman. In his abortive attempt however, Borglum had developed the necessary techniques for sculpting on a gigantic scale that made Mount Rushmore possible.[42]
Mount RushmoreMain article: Mount Rushmore
Mount Rushmore, located in the Black Hills of South DakotaHis Mount Rushmore project, 1927–1941, was the brainchild of South Dakota state historian Doane Robinson.[43] His first attempt with the face of Thomas Jefferson had to be redone when it was determined that there was not enough stone to complete it.[44] Dynamite was used to remove large areas of rock from under Washington\'s brow. The initial pair of presidents, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, was soon joined by Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt.[45]
Ivan Houser, father of John Sherrill Houser, was assistant sculptor to Gutzon Borglum in the early years of carving; he began working with Borglum shortly after the inception of the monument and was with Borglum for a total of seven years. When Houser left Gutzon to devote his talents to his own work, Gutzon\'s son, Lincoln, took over as Assistant-Sculptor to his father.[46]
Borglum alternated exhausting on-site supervising with world tours, raising money, polishing his personal legend, sculpting a Thomas Paine memorial for Paris and a Woodrow Wilson memorial for Poznań, Poland (1931).[47] In his absence, work at Mount Rushmore was overseen by Bill Tallman[48] and later his son, Lincoln Borglum[49]. During the Rushmore project, father and son were residents of Beeville, Texas. When he died in Chicago, following complications of surgery, his son finished another season at Rushmore, but left the monument largely in the state of completion it had reached under his father\'s direction.[50]
Other works
Statue of Comstock Lode silver baron John William Mackay (1831–1902), Mackay School of Earth Sciences and Engineering, University of Nevada, Reno.(1908)
Aviator, Borglum, 1919, University of Virginia
North Carolinian soldiers at the Battle of GettysburgIn 1909, the sculpture Rabboni was created as a grave site for the Ffoulke Family in Washington, D.C. at Rock Creek Cemetery.[51]
Four public works by Borglum are in Newark, New Jersey: Seated Lincoln (1911), Indian and the Puritan (1916), Wars of America (1926), and a stele with bas-relief, First Landing Party of the Founders of Newark (1916).[52][53]
In 1912, the Nathaniel Wheeler Memorial Fountain was dedicated in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
Memorial to Robert Louis Stevenson at Baker Cottage, Saranac Lake, New York. Unveiled in 1915.
He supported Czechoslovak legions on his land at Stamford in 1917.[54]
In 1918, he was one of the drafters of the Czechoslovak declaration of independence.[55]
One of Borglum\'s more unusual pieces is the Aviator completed in 1919 as a memorial for James Rogers McConnell, who was killed in World War I while flying for the Lafayette Escadrille. It is located on the grounds of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia.[56]
In 1922, he crafted a sculpture of William D. Hoard in what is now the Henry Mall Historic District on the campus of the University of Wisconsin.[citation needed]
His statue of Harvey W. Scott was completed in 1933 and stands at the peak of Mount Tabor, Portland, Oregon.
Borglum sculpted the memorial Start Westward of the United States, which is located in Marietta, Ohio (1938).[citation needed]
He built the statue of Daniel Butterfield at Sakura Park in Manhattan (1918).[57]
He created a memorial to Sacco and Vanzetti (1928), a plaster cast of which is now in the Boston Public Library.[58][59][60][61][62]
Another Borglum design is the North Carolina Monument on Seminary Ridge at the Gettysburg Battlefield in south-central Pennsylvania. The cast bronze sculpture depicts a wounded Confederate officer encouraging his men to push forward during Pickett\'s Charge. Borglum had also made arrangements for an airplane to fly over the monument during the dedication ceremony on July 3, 1929. During the sculpture\'s unveiling, the plane scattered roses across the field as a salute to those North Carolinians who had fought and died at Gettysburg.[citation needed]
In 1939 when German troops marched into Poland they destroyed Borglum\'s statue of Woodrow Wilson located in Poznan.[63]
DeathBorglum died in 1941 of a heart attack and is buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, California.[64]
In popular cultureHistorian Simon Schama, in his Landscape and Memory, discusses Borglum\'s life and work.[65]PublicationsBorglum, Gutzon (June 1914). \"Art That Is Real And American: Why We Should Create Our Own Art out Of Our Own National History Instead Of Imitating The Work That Properly Expressed The Triumphs Of Greece And Rome\". The World\'s Work: A History of Our Time. XLIV (2): 200–215. Retrieved 2009-08-04.Gallery
Bust of Abraham Lincoln, Crypt of the U.S. Capitol (1908)Rabboni, Rock Creek Cemetery, Washington, D. C. (1909)Memorial to Henry Lawson Wyatt, North Carolina State Capitol (1912)John Peter Altgeld, Lincoln Park, Chicago (1915)Thomas Paine, Montsouris, Paris (1936)Memorial to Charles Brantley Aycock, North Carolina State Capitol (1941)Stone Mountain is a quartz monzonite dome monadnock and the site of Stone Mountain Park, near the city of Stone Mountain, Georgia. The park is owned by the state of Georgia and managed by Norcross-based Herschend Family Entertainment. At its summit, the elevation is 1,686 feet (514 m) above sea level and 825 feet (251 m) above the surrounding area. Stone Mountain is well known for not only its geology, but also the enormous rock relief on its north face, the largest bas-relief artwork in the world.[1] The carving, begun with aid from the Ku Klux Klan as a memorial to the Lost Cause of the Confederacy, depicts three Confederate leaders, Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and Stonewall Jackson—making it the subject of widespread controversy.[2][3] The president of the NAACP called it \"the largest shrine to white supremacy in the history of the world\".[4]
Stone Mountain was once owned by the Venable Brothers,[5] \"as a memorial to the Confederacy.\"[6] Stone Mountain Park officially opened on April 14, 1965 – 100 years to the day after Lincoln\'s assassination,[7] although the park had already been in use for a few years.[8] By 2015, it was the most visited destination in the state of Georgia.[6]
Stone Mountain is more than 5 miles (8 km) in circumference at its base. The summit of the mountain can be reached by a walk-up trail on the west side of the mountain or by the Skyride aerial tram.Contents1 Geology2 Natural history3 Confederate Memorial3.1 Involvement of the Ku Klux Klan3.2 Confederate Memorial controversy4 History4.1 Aviation incidents4.2 Governance5 Places of interest5.1 Broadcast tower5.2 Scenic railroad5.3 Stone Mountain trails5.4 Attractions6 See also7 References8 Further reading9 External linksGeology
South side of Stone Mountain from the Songbird Habitat and Trail in 2009Stone Mountain is a pluton, a type of igneous intrusion. Primarily composed of quartz monzonite, the dome of Stone Mountain was formed during the formation of the Blue Ridge Mountains around 300–350 million years ago (during the Carboniferous period), part of the Appalachian Mountains.[9] It formed as a result of the upwelling of magma from within the Earth\'s crust. This magma solidified to form granite within the crust five to ten miles below the surface.
The Stone Mountain pluton continues underground 9 miles (14 km) at its longest point into Gwinnett County. Numerous reference books and Georgia literature have dubbed Stone Mountain as \"the largest exposed piece of granite in the world\".[10] This misconception is most likely a result of misrepresentation by granite companies and early park administration. Stone Mountain, though often called a pink granite dome, actually ranges in composition from quartz monzonite[11] to granite and granodiorite.[12]
The minerals within the rock include quartz, plagioclase feldspar, microcline, and muscovite, with smaller amounts of biotite and tourmaline. The tourmaline is mostly black in color, and the majority of it exists as optically continuous skeletal[13] crystals, but much larger, euhedral pegmatitic tourmaline crystals can also be found in the mountain\'s numerous, cross-cutting felsic dikes. Embedded in the granite are xenoliths or pieces of foreign rocks entrained in the magma.
The granite intruded into the metamorphic rocks of the Piedmont region during the last stages of the Alleghenian Orogeny, which was the time when North America and North Africa collided. Over time, erosion eventually exposed the present mountain of more resistant igneous rock. This intrusion of granite also gave rise to Panola Mountain and Arabia Mountain, both in DeKalb County, smaller outcroppings farther south of Stone Mountain.
Natural history
Summit of Stone Mountain, Kennesaw Mountain in background
Exposed Granite at Stone MountainThe top of the mountain is a landscape of bare rock and rock pools, and it provides views of the surrounding area including the skyline of downtown Atlanta, often Kennesaw Mountain, and on very clear days even the Appalachian Mountains. On some days, the top of the mountain is shrouded in a heavy fog, and visibility may be limited to only a few feet.
The clear freshwater pools on the summit form by rainwater gathering in eroded depressions, and are home to unusual clam shrimp and fairy shrimp. The tiny shrimp appear only during the rainy season. Through the process of cryptobiosis, the tiny shrimp eggs (or cysts) can remain dormant for years in the dried out depressions, awaiting favorable conditions. These vernal pools are also home to several federally listed rare and endangered plant species, such as black-spored quillwort (Isoetes melanospora) and pool sprite (also called snorkelwort, Gratiola amphiantha).[14][15]
The mountain\'s lower slopes are wooded. The rare Georgia oak was first discovered at the summit, and several specimens can easily be found along the walk-up trail and in the woods around the base of the mountain. In the fall, the Confederate yellow daisy (Helianthus porteri) flowers appear on the mountain, growing in rock crevices and in the large wooded areas. More than 120 wildflowers, most of them native to the Southern Appalachians and including several rare or federally protected species, have been identified on the mountain.[16]Leaves of the Georgia oakConfederate yellow daisy (Helianthus porteri)pool sprite Gratiola amphianthaquillwort Isoetes melanospora
Confederate Memorial
Close-up of the memorial
1925 Stone Mountain Memorial Half Dollar (design by Borglum)The largest bas-relief sculpture in the world, the Confederate Memorial Carving depicts three Confederate leaders of the Civil War: President Jefferson Davis and Generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. \"Stonewall\" Jackson (on their favorite horses, Blackjack, Traveller, and Little Sorrel, respectively). The entire carved surface measures 1.57 acres (6,400 m2). The carving of the three men is 400 feet (120 m) above the ground, measures 76 by 158 feet (23 by 48 m), and is recessed 42 feet (13 m) into the mountain. The deepest point of the carving is at Lee\'s right elbow, which is 12 feet (3.7 m) into the mountain\'s surface.[17]
Who first conceived of a Confederate memorial on the side of Stone Mountain has long been a matter of debate..... The written evidence...points to Francis Ticknor, a nineteenth-century physician and poet from Jones County, Georgia...in an 1869 poem.... William H. Terrell, an Atlanta attorney and son of a Confederate veteran, ...suggested it publicly on May 26, 1914 in an editorial for the Atlanta Constitution.\"[18]:55 Three weeks later, Georgian John Temple Graves, editor of the New York American, suggested it should have a 70-foot (21 m) statue of Robert E. Lee.[18]:56
The project was greatly advanced by Mrs. C. Helen Plane,[19] a charter member of the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) and first president and Honorary Life President of the Georgia State Division.[18]:57 After obtaining the approval of the Georgia UDC, she set up the UDC Stone Mountain Memorial Association. She chose the sculptor Gutzon Borglum for the project and invited him to visit the mountain (although, despite his Ku Klux Klan involvement,[18]:79 she \"would not shake his hand—he was, after all, a Yankee\").[18]:58–59 She met him at the Atlanta train station, took him to her family\'s summer home, Mont Rest, at the foot of the mountain, and introduced him to Sam Venable,[18]:59 another active Klan member and owner of the mountain. Borglum also enlisted Luigi Del Bianco, whom he would also involve in Mount Rushmore.[20]
Borglum\'s original plan was: five groups of figures, sixty-five mounted officers representing the states (to be chosen by the states), General Nathan Bedford Forrest and his cavalry—some 700 to 1,000 figures, each from 35 feet (11 m) to 50 feet (15 m) high. In addition, Borglum planned a room cut 60 feet (18 m) into the mountain, 320 feet (98 m) wide, and 40 feet (12 m) high, faced by 13 columns.[18]:59–60
Venable deeded the north face of the mountain to the UDC in 1916, on condition that it complete a sizable Civil War monument in 12 years. Finances as well as technical problems slowed progress. The US Mint issued a 1925 Commemorative silver US half dollar, bearing the words \"Stone Mountain\", as a fundraiser for the monument.[21] This issue, which required the approval of both the 1926 Congress and President Calvin Coolidge, was the largest issue of commemorative coins by the U.S. government up to that time.[18]:81
Financial conflicts between Borglum and the Association led to his firing in 1925.[18]:85 He destroyed his models, claiming that they were his property, but the Association disagreed and had a warrant issued for his arrest. He was warned of the arrest and narrowly escaped to North Carolina, whose governor, Angus McLean, refused to extradite him,[18]:89 though he could not return to Georgia. The affair was highly publicized and there was much discussion and discord, including discord between Sam Venable, the Association, and its president Hollins Randolph.[18]:103, 116–119 The face of Lee that Borglum had partially completed was blasted off the mountain in 1928.[18]:111
Borglum\'s next major project was Mount Rushmore.
After a number of sculptors turned them down,[18]:97 Augustus Lukeman took up the work in 1925, with a different, smaller design. Fundraising was even more difficult after the public debate and name-calling, and work stopped in 1928. In 1941 segregationist Governor Eugene Talmadge formed the Stone Mountain Memorial Association (SMMA) to continue work on the memorial, but the project was delayed once again by the U.S. entry into World War II (1941–45).[22]
In response to Brown v. Board of Education of 1954 and the birth of the Civil Rights Movement, in 1958, at the urging of segregationist Governor Marvin Griffin,[7]:21 the Georgia legislature approved a measure to purchase Stone Mountain at a price of $1.125 million. In 1963 Walker Hancock was selected to complete the carving, and work began in 1964. The carving was dedicated in a ceremony on May 9, 1970.[23] The carving was completed by Roy Faulkner on March 3, 1972.[24] Faulkner in 1985 opened the Stone Mountain Carving Museum (now closed) on nearby Memorial Drive commemorating the carving\'s history.[25] An extensive archival collection related to the project is now at Emory University, with the bulk of the materials dating from 1915 to 1930; the finding aid provides a history of the project, and an index of the papers contained in the collection.[19]
Stone Mountain Park officially opened on April 14, 1965 – 100 years to the day after Lincoln\'s assassination.[7] Four flags of the Confederacy are flown at the site.[26] The Stone Mountain Memorial Lawn \"contains...thirteen terraces — one for each Confederate state.... Each terrace flies the flag that the state flew as member of the Confederacy.\"[27]
Involvement of the Ku Klux Klan
William J. Simmons founded the reborn Klan atop Stone Mountain in 1915
The Atlanta Constitution clipping Nov. 28, 1915, describing the Klan re-establishment atop Stone MountainStone Mountain was \"the sacred site to members of the second and third national klans.\"[28]:262
The rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan – the second Klan — was inspired by D. W. Griffith\'s 1915 Klan-glorifying film, The Birth of a Nation.[29] It was followed in August by the highly publicized lynching of Leo Frank, who had been wrongly convicted of murder, in nearby Marietta, Georgia. On November 25 of the same year, Thanksgiving Day, a small group, including fifteen robed and hooded \"charter members\" of the new organization, met at the summit of Stone Mountain to create a new iteration of the Klan. They were led by William J. Simmons, and included two elderly members of the original Klan. As part of their ceremony, they set up on the summit an altar covered with a flag, opened a Bible, and burned a 16-foot cross.[7]:20[30]
Stone Mountain was the location of an annual Labor Day cross-burning ceremony for the next 50 years,[31] only ending when the state condemned the property[clarification needed].
Fundraising for the monument resumed in 1923. In October of that year, Venable granted the Klan easement with perpetual right to hold celebrations as they desired.[32] The influence of the UDC continued, in support of Mrs. Plane\'s vision of a carving explicitly for the purpose of creating a Confederate memorial. She suggested in a letter to the first sculptor, Gutzon Borglum:
I feel it is due to the Klan[,] which saved us from Negro dominations [sic] and carpetbag rule, that it be immortalized on Stone Mountain. Why not represent a small group of them in their nightly uniform approaching in the distance?[7]:21[22]
The UDC established the Stone Mountain Confederate Memorial Association (SMCMA) for fundraising and on-site supervision of the project. Venable and Borglum, who were both closely associated with the Klan, arranged to pack the SMCMA with Klan members.[33] The SMCMA, along with the United Daughters of the Confederacy, continued fundraising efforts. Of the $250,000 raised, part came from the federal government, which in 1925 issued special fifty-cent coins with the soldiers Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson on them.[34] The image on the verso of the coin was based on The Last Meeting of Lee and Jackson,[35] executed in 1869 by Everett B. D. Fabrino Julio (American, b. St. Helena 1843 – 1879, emigrated to US 1860), itself an icon of Lost Cause mythology; it is now in the American Civil War Museum (until 2012 the Museum of the Confederacy).[36] When the state completed the purchase in 1960, it condemned the property to void Venable\'s agreement to allow the Klan perpetual right to hold meetings on the premises.[33]
Confederate Memorial controversySee also: Removal of Confederate monuments and memorialsAfter the Charleston church shooting in mid-2015, Stone Mountain was the subject of a political debate related to the removal of symbols of the Confederacy.[37] This controversy was stimulated by a movement in other states to remove the Confederate battle flag and statues of Confederate leaders from public areas.
[The Confederate sculpture at Stone Mountain is] the largest shrine to white supremacy in the history of the world ... I don\'t think people understand the objective and the intent. They don\'t understand that it\'s based on white supremacy because the [American Civil War] was based on white supremacy, and the \'heroes\' are based on white supremacy. After the killings at Emanuel Church in Charleston, it finally crystallized for me that these monuments encourage violence and validate oppression.
— president of the NAACP, Richard Rose[4]A proposal was made to remove the Confederate carving from Stone Mountain Park.[38] However, according to Georgia state law, no one is allowed to alter the figures carved upon the stone face. Any changes within the state park would require approval by the state legislature.[39]
On October 11, 2015, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported the park is considering a proposal of a permanent \"Freedom Bell\" honoring Martin Luther King, Jr. and the line \"Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia\" as part of King\'s \"I Have a Dream\" speech of 1963.[40] The proposed monument is inspired by a bell-ringing ceremony held in 2013 honoring the 50th anniversary of King\'s speech. It is not supported by the NAACP or King-founded Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), who want the Confederate symbols removed.[41] Advance Local reported in 2015 that both the DeKalb County branch of the NAACP and the Sons of Confederate Veterans were opposed to the bell because it would have been put next to a Confederate monument. Representatives of the NAACP were quoted by the article saying \"It\'s an attempt to gain support from blacks to keep these racist and demeaning symbols.\"
In August 2017, after the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia—a white nationalist protest against the removal of the Robert E. Lee monument and Stonewall Jackson sculpture—turned violent, many people across the country again demanded the removal of many Confederate monuments and memorials as a part of a national political debate.[42][43][44] Georgia State Representative and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams called for the removal, by sandblasting, of Stone Mountain\'s carving.[45][46] She called it \"a blight upon our state\".[47][48]
On July 5, 2020, 100 to 200 protesters, many carrying large rifles, called for the carving\'s removal.[49] Known as the Not Fucking Around Coalition (NFAC), it was a protest against both overt and systemic racism, calling out white supremacists, with the location being chosen in part due to its history as the place where the Ku Klux Klan was re-formed.[50]
History
Stone Mountain, c. 1910
Grist Mill at Stone Mountain
Covered bridge at Stone Mountain
Stone Mountain Scenic Railroad depot (1971 photograph)
Carillon at Stone Mountain Park; January 2012
Pavilion and transmitting tower at the summit of Stone Mountain
The mountain top and SkyrideHuman habitation of Stone Mountain and its surroundings date back into prehistory. When the mountain was first encountered by European explorers, its summit was encircled by a rock wall, similar to that still to be found on Georgia\'s Fort Mountain. The wall is believed to have been built by early Native American inhabitants of the area, although its purpose remains unclear. By the beginning of the 20th century, the wall had disappeared, the rocks having been taken away by early visitors as souvenirs, rolled down the rockface, or removed by the commercial quarrying operation. The mountain was the eastern end of the Campbellton Trail, a Native American path that ran through what is now the Atlanta area.
Europeans first learned of the mountain in 1567, when Spanish explorers were told of a mountain farther inland which was \"very high, shining when the sun set like a fire.\"[further explanation needed] By this time, the Stone Mountain area was inhabited by the Creek and (to a lesser extent) Cherokee peoples.
In the early 19th century, the area was known as Rock Mountain. After the founding of DeKalb County and the county seat of Decatur in 1822, Stone Mountain was a natural recreation area; it was common for young couples on dates to ride to the mountain on horseback. The mountain is easy to climb and there has been a path since the nineteenth century.
Entrepreneur Aaron Cloud built a 165 feet (50 m) wooden observation tower at the summit of the mountain in 1838, but it was destroyed by a storm and replaced by a much smaller tower in 1851. Visitors to the mountain would travel to the area by rail and road, and then walk up the 1.1-mile (1.8 km) mountaintop trail to the top, where Cloud also had a restaurant and club.
Granite quarrying started at Stone Mountain in the 1830s, but became a major industry following the completion of a railroad spur to the quarry site in 1847. This line was rebuilt by the Georgia Railroad in 1869. Over the years, Stone Mountain granite was used in many buildings and structures, including the locks of the Panama Canal, the steps to the East Wing of the United States Capitol and the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo. In recent years, granite suppliers in Georgia sent stone samples cut from Stone Mountain to the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Foundation to be considered for use in a planned monument in King\'s honor; the foundation later chose to use granite imported from China.[51] Quarrying during earlier periods also destroyed several spectacular geological features on Stone Mountain, such as the Devil\'s Crossroads, which was located on top of the mountain.
In 1887 Stone Mountain was purchased for $45,000 by the Venable Brothers of Atlanta, who quarried the mountain for 24 more years, and descendants of the Venable family would retain ownership of the mountain until it was purchased by the State of Georgia in 1958.
Martin Luther King, Jr. mentioned the monument in his 1963 \"I Have a Dream\" speech in Washington, D.C., when he said \"let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!\"[52]
During the 1996 Summer Olympics, Stone Mountain Park provided venues for Olympic events in tennis, archery and track cycling.[53][54] The venues for archery and cycling were temporary and are now part of the songbird and habitat trail.[55]
Some of the outdoor scenes for the Netflix series Stranger Things were filmed in the park.[56]
Aviation incidentsAccording to George Weiblen\'s annotated calendar for Monday, May 7, 1928: \"Mail plane crashed on mountain at 8:00 P.M.\"[citation needed] The pilot, Johnny S. Kytle (1905–1931), not only survived the crash, but managed to grab the mail and walk down the mountain.
Around dusk on September 16, 2003, in clear weather, a small airplane circled the mountain five times, crashed headlong into the south side, burst into flames. The pilot was killed. A witness testifying at the NTSB investigation stated that the pilot, a 69-year-old accountant, had threatened on multiple occasions to commit suicide by flying into the mountain. The official NTSB accident report lists the probable cause as \"The pilot\'s intentional flight into the ground for the purpose of suicide while impaired by alcohol.\"[57]
GovernanceStone Mountain Park, which surrounds the Confederate Memorial, is owned by the state of Georgia and managed by the Stone Mountain Memorial Association, a Georgia state authority. The Herschend Family Entertainment Corporation currently has a long-term contract to operate park attractions while the Stone Mountain Memorial Association retains ownership and the right to reject any project deemed unfit. Under terms of a 1999 agreement, Norcross, Georgia-based Herschend pays the state of Georgia $11 million annually.[58] Stone Mountain Park is the largest attraction operated by privately held Herschend, which also manages several dozen other attractions including Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, and Silver Dollar City in Branson, Missouri. The company\'s CEO said in a 2012 news interview that the contract to operate Stone Mountain extended another 35 years.[59]
Places of interestConfederate Hall, operated directly by the Stone Mountain Memorial Association (SMMA), is a museum that educates students and park guests on the geology and ecology of Stone Mountain as well as historical aspects of the area. A small theater shows a historical documentary about the Civil War in Georgia called The Battle for Georgia.
The education department is host to thousands of students each school year, teaching the subjects of geology, ecology, and history. Classes are designed to meet the Georgia Performance Standards and the North American Association for Environmental Education guidelines.
The Antebellum Plantation and Farmyard is an open-air museum composed of 19 historic buildings, built between 1790 and 1875, which have been re-erected on the site to represent a pre-Civil War Georgia plantation. The historic houses have been furnished with an extensive collection of period furniture and decorations. The farm features a petting zoo.
A 732-bell carillon that originated at the 1964 New York World\'s Fair provides a daily concert.
A covered bridge dates from 1892, which originally spanned the Oconee River in Athens, Georgia.[60]
A grist mill dates from 1869 and moved to the park in 1965.
Broadcast towerThe short broadcast tower on the top of the mountain transmits two non-commercial stations: television station WGTV TV 8, and weather radio station KEC80 on 162.55 MHz. FM radio station WABE FM 90.1 was located on this tower from 1984 until 2005, when it was required to relocate to accommodate WGTV\'s digital conversion.[citation needed] W266BW FM 101.1 now has a permit as well. Atop the tower also sits the W4BOC amateur radio repeater, which operates on a frequency of 146.760 MHz.
The tower is also used for the park\'s Project 25 two-way radio systems.[61][62]
Scenic railroadMain article: Stone Mountain Scenic RailroadStone Mountain trails
Stone Mountain walk-up trail
Stone Mountain riverboatWalk Up Trail is a 1.3-mile (2.1 km) trail to the top of Stone Mountain ascending 786 ft (240 m) in elevation to a height of 1,686 ft (514 m). The trail is steep, but spectacular panoramic views and cool winds await hikers at the top.
Cherokee Trail is a 5-mile (8 km) National Recreation Trail. It loops around the mountain base, with a mile section going up and over the west side of the mountain (crosses Walk Up Trail). It passes primarily through an oak-hickory forest, but views of the lakes, streams, and mountain are common.[63]
Nature Garden Trail is a scenic 3⁄4 mile (1.2 km) loop trail through a mature oak-hickory forest community, it is excellent for viewing shade-loving native plants. A small garden with interpretive native plant signs is at the entrance to the trail.
Songbird Habitat Trails comprise two loop trails each running 1 mile (1.6 km). The field trail is a birding spot and the woodland trail provides shade and numerous native plants. Dogs are not allowed.
AttractionsThe park features several attractions that are operated by Herschend Family Entertainment Corporation.
On summer evenings the mountain hosts the Stone Mountain Laser Show Spectacular, a fireworks and laser light display. The laser light show projects moving images of the Deep South as well as Georgia history onto the Confederate Memorial carving on the side of the mountain. During Memorial Day Weekend of 2011, Stone Mountain unveiled its overhaul of the laser show, dubbed Mountainvision. This incorporates digital projectors, lasers, special effects, and pyrotechnics.[64]
The Skyride, a Swiss-built cable car to the summit of the mountain, passes by the carving on the way up.
The Riverboat offered a scenic cruise aboard a reproduction of a Mississippi riverboat on 363-acre (147 ha) Stone Mountain Lake. It has been retired.
Historic Square is a collection of historic buildings relocated from around the state of Georgia, including three plantation manor-houses dating from 1794, 1850, and 1845; two slave cabins; a barn; and other outbuildings. The Historic Square Farmyard features historic breeds of sheep, goats, and pigs.
Crossroads is a recreation of an 1872 southern town with several attractions that include a modern 4-D movie theater, an adventure mini-golf course, a duck tour ride. The duck boats have been replaced by the Rockin’ Land and Lake Tour in 2019 due to several deaths in other locations caused by duck boat accidents.[65] The tour includes a ride on a double decker open top bus and a pontoon boat ride at the marina.) stores and restaurants. Craft demonstrators include glass blowing and candy-making.
The Dinotorium is a children\'s activity area that features 65 interactive games, climbing structures, trampoline floors, and slides.
Sky Hike is a family ropes adventure course.
Geyser Towers is a playground featuring a large fountain at the entrance.
altimore uprooted General Lee under the cover of night. New Orleans removed its four Confederate statues to mixed reactions—some voicing relief, others, disapproval. And with the violence that followed the events in Charlottesville, when white nationalists killed one counter-protestor and injured 19 more, the question of how America deals with its history of racism has continued to grow in urgency.
RELATED CONTENTIn the Shadow of Stone MountainBut what’s a state to do when the monument in question is carved 42 feet deep and 400 feet above ground into a granite mountain, with figures of General Lee, General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson and President of the Confederacy Jefferson Davis larger than the presidential visages of Mount Rushmore?
“We must never celebrate those who defended slavery and tried to destroy the Union… the visible image of Stone Mountain’s edifice remains a blight on our state and should be removed,” said Stacy Abrams, a Democratic candidate for Georgia governor, on Twitter in the days after the Charlottesville violence. And while Abrams is far from the only voice to call for the memorial’s removal, her call has been met by many Georgians who want the memorial to remain untouched.
With arguments raging across the country about the validity of Confederate monuments and whether they offer valuable history lessons or simply perpetuate the inaccurate “Lost Cause” mythology, Stone Mountain Confederate Memorial offers an example of the dark past of some monuments—and shows how hard their removal may be.
A Brief History of a 15-Million-Year-Old MountainThe Stone Mountain quarries were excavated for their granite in the late 1800s. Granite from the mountain was used in cities across the country.The Stone Mountain quarries were excavated for their granite in the late 1800s. Granite from the mountain was used in cities across the country. (Wikimedia Commons)At 1,683 feet tall, with a base circumference of 3.8 miles, Stone Mountain is an imposing feature in the otherwise even terrain. The granite block is a monadnock, or isolated mountain, created by a pocket of magma trapped underground 300 million years ago and only coming to the surface, through uplift and erosion, 15 million years ago.
As early as 4000 B.C., Paleo-Indians were drawn to the imposing mountain. Soapstone bowls and other artifacts recovered by archaeologists testify to the mountain’s earliest visitors. Researchers later found stone walls erected atop the mountain, likely constructed sometime between 100 B.C. and 500 A.D..
But it wasn’t until the 19th century that humans began exploiting the unique geologic structure on a more massive scale. In 1869, Stone Mountain Granite and Railway Co. began a systematic effort to mine the mountain for stone. That work was taken over by the Venable Brothers in 1882, whose workers harvested 200,000 paving blocks daily, in addition to other sizes of blocks.
With its uniform color, the granite became a coveted building material. Blocks from the Stone Mountain quarry were shipped across the country and around the world. They form the steps on the east wing of the U.S. Capitol; they’re in the locks of the Panama Canal, the structure of Arlington Memorial Bridge in Washington, D.C., and the Imperial Hotel building in Tokyo; and the blocks were used in dozens of courthouses and post offices across America.
But for all its architectural impact, Stone Mountain had yet to achieve its greatest claim to fame and notoriety. That would come in 1916, with a Civil War widow and a sculptor who later carved Mount Rushmore.
The Birth of a MemorialMembers of the Ku Klux Klan burn a cross on top of Stone Mountain while initiating 700 new members in July 1948. The mountain was also the site of the group\'s second resurgence.Members of the Ku Klux Klan burn a cross on top of Stone Mountain while initiating 700 new members in July 1948. The mountain was also the site of the group\'s second resurgence. (AP Photo)“Just now, while the loyal devotion of this great people of the South is considering a general and enduring monument to the great cause ‘fought without shame and lost without dishonor,’ it seems to me that nature and Providence have set the immortal shrine right at our doors,” wrote newspaper editor John Temple Graves for the Atlanta Georgian on June 14, 1914.
His argument was simple, and less provocative than a statement he’d made on lynching a decade earlier (in which he argued lynching was the most useful tool in preventing rape, since “the negro is a thing of the senses… [and] must be restrained by the terror of the senses”). Graves believed the South deserved a monument to its Confederate heroes. Stone Mountain was a literal blank slate, just waiting for a suitable memorial to be carved into it.
Among those Southern citizens who read Graves’s editorial and others like it was C. Helen Plane, a member of the Atlanta United Daughters of the Confederacy (founded in 1895) and honorary “Life President” of the group. At 85, Plane fought as passionately for the memory of her husband and other Confederate soldiers killed in the Civil War as she had done decades earlier. She brought the issue of a memorial before both the city and state chapters of the UDC, quickly gaining the group’s support. While the UDC briefly considered such notable artists as Auguste Rodin to carve the features of General Lee into Stone Mountain, they ultimately settled on Gutzon Borglum.
But after visiting Stone Mountain, Borglum was convinced the UDC hadn’t been ambitious enough in their idea for a bust of Lee. He proposed what would be a 1,200-foot-long carving featuring 700 to 1,000 figures, with Lee, Jackson and Davis in the foreground and hundreds of soldiers behind them. The monumental work would require eight years and $2 million to complete, though Borglum estimated the main figures could be finished for just $250,000 (almost $6 million today).
“The Confederacy furnished the story, God furnished the mountain. If I can furnish the craftsmanship and you will furnish the financial support, then we will put there something before which the world will stand amazed,” Borglum announced before an audience of potential sponsors in 1915.
While the amount Borglum required seemed impossibly high, Plane pushed forward with her fundraising efforts, writes David Freeman in Carved in Stone: The History of Stone Mountain. Plane also secured a land deed from the Venable family, with patriarch Sam Venable even inviting Borglum to his home at the foot of the mountain.
But the sculptor wasn’t the only person Venable welcomed to his property in the fall of 1915. He also befriended William Simmons, who ushered in the modern era of the Ku Klux Klan, founding the Second KKK at the top of Stone Mountain on November 25, 1915. That night, more than a dozen men gathered to become part of a resurgent white supremacy group that had mostly died out in the late 1800s. Inspired by the film Birth of a Nation, they burned a cross and swore their loyalty to the Klan, ushering in a new era of white nationalist terrorism.
Venable himself, who was part of the ceremony, quickly rose through the ranks of the KKK, allowing the group regular use of his grounds. As Paul Stephen Hudson and Lora Pond Mirza write in Atlanta’s Stone Mountain: A Multicultural History, “Their meeting place for decades was known as the ‘Klan Shack’ in Stone Mountain Village.”
But the overlap between the memorial and the Klan didn’t end with their geographical origins. At one point, Borglum considered including the KKK in his monument at the prompting of Plane, who wrote:
“The Birth of a Nation will give us a percentage of next Monday’s matinee. Since seeing this wonderful and beautiful picture of Reconstruction in the South, I feel that it is due to the Ku Klux Klan which saved us from Negro domination and carpet-bag rule, that it be immortalized on Stone Mountain. Why not represent a small group of them in their nightly uniform approaching in the distance?”
Although Borglum ultimately declined to include the figures in his carving, he agreed the KKK should have some recognition in the memorial, perhaps in a room carved out of the mountain. But none of his plans were destined to be achieved. By 1924 he had only completed Lee’s head, having been delayed by World War I, and a disagreement between Borglum and the managing association resulted in him leaving the project in 1925. But he wasn’t between jobs for long; Borglum went on to work on Mount Rushmore, a project that lasted him from 1927 till 1941.
Meanwhile, the Klan’s membership exploded to more than 4 million members, and in 1925 they marched on Washington, D.C. Wherever the group popped up, acts of terror committed against innocent African-Americans, Catholics and immigrants were sure to follow.
Reclaiming the South from the Civil Rights MovementWorkers prepare for an expected 100,000 people for the dedication of the world\'s largest memorial to leaders of the Confederacy, May 1970.Workers prepare for an expected 100,000 people for the dedication of the world\'s largest memorial to leaders of the Confederacy, May 1970. (AP Photo/Joe Holloway Jr.)With only three years to go before the land deed from the Venables was set to expire (they had granted 12 years to finish the memorial), a second sculptor was brought in. But Augustus Lukeman barely had time to remove the work Borglum had done and start work on a carving of three figures on horseback when he was forced to abandon the project in 1928.
The deed expired, the Venable family took back their property, and the mountain remained untouched for 36 years. Although the Georgia state government attempted to gain recognition for Stone Mountain from the National Park Service, they were informed that scarring from the earlier granite quarries and the incomplete carvings destroyed the mountain’s natural value.
But with the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision that segregated schools were unconstitutional, and the growing influence of the Civil Rights Movement, the time had come for renewed action. “So long as Marvin Griffin is your governor, there will be no mixing of the races in the classrooms of our schools and colleges of Georgia,” Griffin informed his constituents in 1955 during his inaugural address. With help from the Georgia General Assembly, Griffin went on to purchase the mountain, using $1 million in public funds. He then made the Stone Mountain Memorial Association a state authority, meaning the governor would appoint the board of directors but the association would receive no tax dollars. To historian Grace Elizabeth Hale, the motivation for doing so couldn’t be clearer.
“State politicians formed Stone Mountain Park as part of an effort to ground the white southern present in images of the southern past, a sort of neo-Confederatism, and halt nationally mandated change in the region,” Hale writes. “For the governor and other supporters of the new plans, the completion of the carving would demonstrate to the rest of the nation that ‘progress’ meant not black rights, but the maintenance of white supremacy.”
After Walter Kirkland Hancock was chosen to lead the sculpting efforts, work resumed in 1964 after a nearly-40-year hiatus. The dedication ceremony was held May 9, 1970, and the memorial was finally completed in 1972, with fine enough detail that the eyebrows and belt buckles were visible, the sculpture large enough that a grown man could stand inside one of the three horse’s mouths. The memorial became the largest high relief sculpture in the world, depicting Davis, Lee and Jackson on horseback, their figures stretched across three acres.
An early version of the park beneath the sculpture included a replica plantation, where slave quarters were described as “neat” and “well furnished” in promotional materials. The slaves were called “hands” or “workers,” Hale writes, and black actor Butterfly McQueen was hired to provide visitors with information about the park.
Sandblasting the ConfederacyToday Stone Mountain Park welcomes millions of people each year, who can hike the mountain or visit the park\'s attractions.Today Stone Mountain Park welcomes millions of people each year, who can hike the mountain or visit the park\'s attractions. (Wikimedia Commons)Today, with 4 million visitors coming to the park each year, the mountain has changed little but the message has shifted. While nature and the memorial are still featured, its theme-park attractions include a 4-D movie theater, a farmyard, miniature golf, a dinosaur-themed playground and more. As far as educational experiences are concerned, a museum includes exhibits on the monument’s history and geology, and an adapted version of the plantation, called “Historic Square” features original and replica buildings and relays information about the antebellum period.
While the violence at Charlottesville spurred new debates over Confederate monuments, controversy surrounding the Stone Mountain Memorial is nothing new. As part of a 2001 political compromise to change the segregation-era state flag so it no longer included symbols of the Confederacy, lawmakers in Georgia’s General Assembly agreed to a statute that protects plaques, monuments and memorials dedicated to military personnel of the U.S. and the Confederate States of America. This, of course, includes Stone Mountain.
“Many members of the [Georgia Legislative Black Caucus] weren’t completely comfortable with it, but we thought that was a compromise to make,” says Lester Jackson, a Georgia state senator from Savannah. “Fast forward 15 years and we need to go back and revisit that.”
In 2018, Jackson and others plan on introducing a resolution in the Georgia state government that would establish a study of all the Confederate monuments in the state. The study will provide evaluations of the monuments based on when they were erected and with what intentions, and recommendations for how to move forward in removing or replacing them.
“When we start removing the symbols of hate and separatism and racism, that’s an important start to becoming one nation of one people,” Jackson says.
But the political process would be lengthy and likely controversial, considering 62 percent of people surveyed in a recent poll believe Confederate statues should remain standing, reports Clare Malone at FiveThirtyEight. And that’s not even taking the practicality of the project into consideration.
“The removal of the carving is not a trivial matter,” said Ben Bentkowski, president of the Atlanta Geological Society, by email. “You just can’t come in the night and remove it.”
Because the carving is 42 feet deep into the mountain, and hundreds of feet wide and tall, even controlled blasting could be dangerous for workers and bystanders. That said, the granite itself is solid, so sandblasting the sculpture wouldn’t affect the structural integrity of the mountain. And although he couldn’t provide a definite estimate for the cost of such an undertaking, Bentkowski believed it would “take millions of dollars to do it safely and not leave just a blast-scarred face of the mountain.”
Another solution goes in the opposite direction of destruction: why not add more to the sculpture? Figures proposed to balance history out have included Martin Luther King, Jr. and, more facetiously, Atlanta-based hip-hop duo Outkast. But this, too, would be a costly endeavor and is currently outlawed under the 2001 statute.
While Abrams and others have called for the sculpture’s removal, politicians on the opposite side of the issue have come to its defense. “Instead of dividing Georgians with inflammatory rhetoric for political gain, we should work together to add to our history, not take from it,” said Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle of Abrams’ position, reports the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
There’s no easy answer when the monument in question is carved into a mountain, when Confederate generals continue to provoke strong emotions. What the debate boils down to is whose version of history will endure. And even when you have a 1,000-foot-granite wall at your disposal, it will never be enough space to capture the complexity of the nation’s centuries-long struggle with the legacy of slavery.
Stone Mountain DesignsWrecked; Borg1um AccusedWarrants Issued For Sculptor, Who ‘ Had Been Dismissed,and an Assistant—Artist Attributes HisDischarge to His Being Northern Man.Atlanta. Feb. 25.——Warrantscharging Gutzon Borglum, sculptor,and J. G. Tucker, his superintendentof. construction, with maliciouslmischiei’ in connection with the de-1struction of the working plans and‘models for carving the Confederatememorial on Stone mountain, nearAtlanta, were sworn out tonight bythe Stone Mountain Monument association,which today dismissedBorglum as directing sculptor.Sheriff J. A. McCurdy. of Dekalbcountypin which Stone mountain islocated, tonight was looking forBorglum and Tucker to serve withthe warrants. The association askedthat bonds of $125,000 be fixed ineach case. \"The association announced thatit had filed suit against Borglumfor $50,000 for alleged destruc-Jtion oi the models and workingplans. Armed guards were placedon duty tonight at Stone mountainby the DeKalb county sheriff. theassociation said.After Borglum was dismissed todayby the association word camefrom the mountain that the modelsand working plans had been de—stroyed. Tucker said Borglum hadinstructed him to destroy the modelsand working plans by which thegigantic carving was being done.Borglum would not affirm or denythe destruction of the models andplans.The executive committee of theorganization announced it terminatedthe agreement with Mr. Borgmm-because tae tz‘;~»rk ot the sculptor“was noti probesdinesa‘tisfecta‘rily.\" This action was taken, inthe tom; \'of ’a resolution cancelingcomment) 0N FIFTH men...
ARREST OF BORGHUM,SCULPTOR ORDEREDCONTINUED FROM l-‘lIlST PAGE. 1the contract and instructing Mr.“Randolph to select another sculptorto carry on the work.The resolution declared that thecontract with Borglum was enteredinto September 10. 1923. It saidthat the sculptor had preferredonly 24 per cent of the roughingout of the central group and thatthe only finished carving done hasbeen a part of. the head of Gen,Robert E. Lee.The contract called for completionof the central group by Sep—tember 10. 1926. the resolutioncontinued, but said that it was evi—dent that the work could not becompleted by that time. It chargedthat Mr. Borglum had in effectabandoned the contract. it is saidthat under the terms of the comtract the association was authorized1m cancel the contract by 30-daylwritten notice to the sculptor.In the resolution the history ofthe Stone Mountain ConfederateMemorial association was sketchedfrom the time of its organization.Many charges were made againstMr. Borglum in the long document.Borglum declared late today thatthe action. of the association indismissing him as directing sculptor“is a. blow not particularlyagainst me but against the South.It is struck against me because Iam a Northern man.\"Declaring that he had been unfairlytreated. Mr. Borglum assertedthat the record of the past nineyears would show “that a crime hasbeen committed today.”
Gutzon Borglum was born in log cabin near Bear Lake, Idaho in 1867 and lived in Utah until 1869. The first sculptor to celebrate the American west and most well known as the sculptor of the Mount Rushmore monument, he created more than 170 sculptures in his lifetime. He died while on a speaking tour in Chicago in 1941.Borglum\'s parents were Danish immigrants who converted to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He spent his childhood in Omaha and when he was seventeen, he moved with his family to Los Angeles where he worked as a lithographer. Borglum studied with Virgil Williams at the Mark Hopkins School of Art in San Francisco in the 1880s. From 1890 to 1893 he lived in Paris where he studied the academic approach to sculpting at the Académie Julian and at the École des Beaux Arts. Auguste Rodin was a major influence on his work. By 1896, Borglum exhibited both painting and sculpture in London and Paris.
Borglum moved to New York in 1901. His first sculptural success was the Mares of Diomedes (1903). He was commissioned to create a sculpture of the apostles that became part of the statuary at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. Sculptures of Woodrow Wilson and Thomas Paine were also commissioned. His large sculpture, The Head of Lincoln, appears in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda.
While working on The Head of Lincoln, Borglum became interested in increasingly monumental sculptural size. He worked on his most famous sculpture, The Mount Rushmore National Monument, in the Black Hills of South Dakota from 1927 until his death in 1941. The 60-foot faces of Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson, and Theodore Roosevelt were blasted out of the granite of the 5,275-foot peak. His son, Lincoln Borglum, finished the monument after his father\'s death.
Gutzon de la Mothe Borglum was born in St. Charles, near Bear Lake, Idaho Territory, on March 26, 1867. His parents were both from Denmark, and Borglum may have developed his love of sculpting by watching his father work as a woodcutter. He also had a younger brother, Solon, who followed in his footsteps and became an artist. As a child, Gutzon lived in Utah from 1868-1869.
Gutzon Borglum studied art in a variety of places including San Francisco, California, and Paris, France. While in Paris, Borglum was greatly influenced by the sculpture of Auguste Rodin. Borglum\'s place of study in France was the Academie Julian, where he studied the academic approach to sculpting from 1890-1893.
Although Borglum studied abroad for a time, his greatest interest remained the subjects he found in the United States. As a boy, Borglum developed his love for the West in particular, preferring to create images of horses and American Indians over other subjects.
In 1901, Gutzon moved to New York where he was commissioned to create a sculpture of the apostles for the St. John the Divine Cathedral. By now involved in “almost exclusively“ sculpture, Gutzon\'s work combined his own peculiar western-born exuberance with a Rodin “sketch-like intensity,“ the result of his years of study in Paris. One excellent example of this powerful combination is his piece Mares of Diomedes, described as a “foaming \'Wild West\' stampede in rather transparent mythological \'clothing.\'“ When the Mares of Diomedes became the first American sculpture to be purchased by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Borglum\'s growing fame was officially sealed.
During his adult life, Gutzon Borglum created many sculptures that epitomize the great figures of American democracy. He completed several sculptures depicting United States\' President Abraham Lincoln, including one using a six-ton block of marble to depict the head of President Lincoln. This Head of Lincoln can be found at the Capitol Rotunda in Washington, D.C. He also completed sculptures of Woodrow Wilson and Thomas Paine. However, while creating his giant sculpture of Lincoln, Borglum became fascinated with art that was larger than life.
Borglum was inventive in creating massive works. He even created new methods for successfully displaying a human figure at many times its actual size. Borglum\'s greatest challenge was completing the Mount Rushmore National Memorial in the Black Hills of South Dakota. This work required Borglum to create the faces of four former United States\' presidents. Yet the faces were not merely double or triple the size of the actual human face, but each face was 60 feet high. Borglum worked on the Monument for 14 summers, but died before it was finished. His son, Lincoln, also a sculptor, finished the work seven months later.
Borglum\'s personality was said to be “outspoken“ and at times “egotistical.“ This type of behavior may have been provoked by Borglum\'s own need to be the best at what he did, which caused him to be critical of anyone who did not share his high ideals in art. Borglum is quoted as saying about his art:
“And I remember very distinctly that beauty and form and the making of things seemed to be a very idle kind of pastime until I myself formed some definite ideals for my own life, quite apart from my own work, and then the work shaped itself to fulfill that life.“
Gutzon Borglum created as many as 170 statues and monuments during his lifetime. His work ranges from Western inspired pieces, to classical works, to those that honor and glorify the ideals and heroes of American society.
Sculptor Gutzon BorglumPortrait of Gutzon Borglum.Portrait of Gutzon Borglum.The path which led Sculptor John Gutzon de la Mothe Borglum to Mount Rushmore began on a homestead near Bear Lake, Idaho, where he was born in March of 1867. His father, James Borglum, had immigrated to this country from Denmark a few years earlier. Shortly after Gutzon\'s birth his family moved to Utah. By the time Borglum was seven they were living in Fremont, Nebraska.
Early YearsGutzon\'s interest in art developed early but he didn\'t receive any formal training until he attended a private school in Kansas. Shortly after being awarded the equivalent of a high school diploma he moved with his family to California. He worked there for a time as a lithographer\'s apprentice, but after six months he struck out on his own. After opening a small studio, he executed a few noteworthy commissions and gradually made a name for himself. In 1888, he completed a portrait of General John C. Fremont, and this marked an important point in his young career. Not only did it bring him recognition and acclaim; it also earned him the friendship of Jessie Benton Fremont, the General\'s wife. She encouraged the young artist and helped him sell many of his works. This eventually earned him enough money to pursue studies in Europe.
Shortly before his departure for France, Borglum married Elizabeth Putnam, an artist and teacher 20 years his senior. This marriage lasted only a few years. The constant traveling in Europe was too much for Elizabeth; they separated while Borglum was living in England and subsequently divorced.
The Artist MaturesBorglum\'s two years in Paris were spent studying art at the Julien Academy and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. He had successful showings at major Paris salons and developed some valuable friendships, including a close relationship with the great French sculptor, Auguste Rodin, who carved The Thinker. After leaving France, Borglum spent a year in Spain and then returned to California. Three years later in 1896, he once again left for Europe; this time settling in England. Here he achieved some success. Some of his works were displayed at Windsor Castle for Queen Victoria. He returned to the United States in 1901.
Back in this country, Borglum led a life marked by artistic success, public service, and occasional controversy. During this period he created many of his finest works. His Mares of Diomedes was accepted by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. He did a large equestrian bronze of General Phil Sheridan which Theodore Roosevelt unveiled in Washington. He also created a memorial to Pickett\'s Charge on the Gettysburg Battlefield. For Newark, New Jersey, he created the Wars of America memorial and the Seated Lincoln.
Sometimes Borglum\'s art led to controversy. He was commissioned to do some statues for the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City. One day a clergyman who was visiting the studio commented that one of the angels needed a sterner and more masculine face. This led to a debate over the gender of angels which the press followed with relish. Borglum eventually complied to the request, making the two angels outside the church more manly, however the angels inside remained more feminine. He saved the model of one of the offending faces for himself and later cast it in silver. Years later the story was repeated as evidence of Borglum\'s temper: in this version he smashed all of his angels and started over. This story was laid to rest by an official of the cathedral, who stated that, \"The angels still stand serene in their places where Gutzon Borglum first placed them.\"
Other InterestsControversy in Borglum\'s life was not limited to art. He led an active political life, campaigning for Theodore Roosevelt in his reelection offer of 1912. During the First World War, he was appointed by President Woodrow Wilson to investigate practices in the aircraft manufacturing industry. He discovered and reported such a scandalous state of affairs that Wilson appointed Chief Justice Hughes to conduct further investigations.
During most of this period, Borglum lived near Stamford, Connecticut, where he maintained a home and studio with his second wife Mary Montgomery Borglum, whom he married in 1909. Two children were born of this marriage, James Lincoln and Mary Ellis. He divided his working time between Stamford and New York where he also had a studio. It was in this New York studio that he created a work that was to have far-reaching consequences.
Bust of Abraham Lincoln, 1908, carved from marble.Bust of Abraham Lincoln, 1908, carved from marble.Developing a New StyleSince his return to the United States, Borglum had worked to create a distinctly \"American\" art. He began to experiment with the \"emotional impact of volume.\" Out of a large block of marble, he fashioned a colossal head of Abraham Lincoln, The work was completed and taken to a shop window in New York. When Robert Lincoln, the son of the late President, was taken to see the work, he exclaimed, \"I never expected to see father again.\" The bust was later purchased and donated to the people of the United States and placed in the rotunda of the Capitol Building where it remains today.
It was the bust of Lincoln that prompted Helen Plane, President of United Daughters of the Confederacy, to contact Borglum about the Possibility of doing a head of Robert E. lee on the side of Stone Mountain in Georgia. He agreed to visit the site in 1915 but upon seeing the size of the place he said, \"Ladies, the head of Lee on the side of that mountain would look like a postage stamp on a barn door!\" Having thus crushed their dream, he proceeded to give them a new one –a large group featuring Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and Jefferson Davis on horseback followed by a column of soldiers.
Model for Stone Mountain Carving.Model for Stone Mountain Carving.Borglum Carves MountainsBecause of World War I, work at Stone Mountain did not begin until 1923. Carving was limited to jackhammers and chisels until a visiting Belgian engineer taught Borglum the use of dynamite for precise work. The head of Lee was unveiled in 1924. Soldiers in the audience who served with the Confederate leader were moved to tears by the likeness.
However, trouble had been brewing between Borglum and the businessmen directing the project, and Borglum was abruptly dismissed. He destroyed his models in order to protect his design and this so angered the directors that a warrant was issued for his arrest and he was forced to flee Georgia. Borglum\'s head of Lee was removed when another artist was engaged and none of his work survived when the carving was finally finished in 1970. However, the spirit of his original design remains.
In 1923, Doane Robinson, the State Historian of South Dakota, read of the Stone Mountain venture and wrote to Borglum about the possibility of doing a mountain carving in the Black Hills. Borglum came to South Dakota in 1924 at the age of 57 and agreed in principle to do the project. His dismissal from Stone Mountain made it possible to return to South Dakota in the summer of 1925 and set in motion the machinery that eventually led to the creation of Mount Rushmore. Work on the sculpture began in 1927. Borglum remained devoted to the project until his death in Chicago following surgery on March 6, 1941, several days before his 74th birthday. He was buried in Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, California. After his death, the project fell to his son Lincoln who in turn put the finishing touches on his father\'s vision.
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