As Mount Rushmore turns 100 years old, a new book digs into the sculpture's origins and meanings, which, like America itself, are layered with achievement and fault. Matthew Davis, author of "A Biography of a Mountain," joins "The Takeout" to discuss the making and meaning of Mount Rushmore.

Mount Rushmore National Memorial

A new book by Matthew Davis, 'A Biography of a Mountain: The Making and Meaning of Mount Rushmore,' delves into the complex history of the iconic monument. The book highlights how Mount Rushmore reflects both the achievements and contradictions of American history, including its ties to westward expansion, relationships with Native communities, and the ambitions of its creators.

The idea for Mount Rushmore originated in the 1920s with South Dakota state historian Doane Robinson, who sought to boost the state's economy through tourism. While Robinson's initial vision included a diverse range of figures representing the American West, the project shifted focus after sculptor Gutzon Borglum was hired, ultimately resulting in the presidential faces seen today.

The origins and meaning of Mount Rushmore

Welcome back. More than two million visitors each year travel to Mount Rushmore. And of course that phrase is synonymous with greatness. It's now 100 years old, Mount Rushmore, and a new book digs into the sculpture, its origins, its meanings, which like America itself are layered with achievement and fault. Earlier I spoke to Matthew Davis on his new book, A Biography of a Mountain, The Making and Meaning of Mount Rushmore. Here's some of our conversation. America is a place of tremendous ambition, complexity, contradiction, myth, legend, cruelty. As I read your book, Matthew, I thought, wow, Mount Rushmore has it all. Yeah, it does. And that's what really interested me about writing it. I felt when I was researching it that Mount Rushmore really is at the center of all those myths you just described. Our westward push, our really fraught relationships with native communities, our search for gold, the way that democracy, liberty, freedom have sort of been embodied in our blood, but also at Mount Rushmore. Then of course our great creative ambition to build huge things like Mount Rushmore. It's all there in that mountain. And that's, I think from the book, I gather one of its magnetic qualities. I think it is. Yeah, I mean, it's what drew me there. It's what draws millions of people there. Two million a year. Yeah, in excess of two million a year. Yeah. Yeah. And it is in part something even if you haven't been to, you feel like you know. But your book is like, no, there's so much more whether you go there or not, you need to know. Yeah. Fill in some of the blanks that people may not need to know, may not know, but need to know about Mount Rushmore. Well, first of all, writing a book is about something that people you think know, but they don't really know. Reading a book about something that you think you know, but you don't really know is one of my favorite things to do. So being able to write one was great. I think the first thing that many people don't know about Mount Rushmore, because it's so big, because it's so monumental, for lack of a better word, people assume that the federal government was behind it from the very beginning. When really, my favorite part of the story is that the idea for Mount Rushmore was created by a state historian named Doane Robinson, who in the 1920s was really concerned about South Dakota's economy. At the time, South Dakota's markets were collapsing because World War I had devastated European markets, but when they recovered, the markets in South Dakota really tanked, and so banks were closing, farms were foreclosing. As I read in your book, South Dakota was a pre-Depression era state, 10 years ahead of time. Exactly, yeah, yeah, exactly. It sort of was a precursor to what was about to come down the line several years later for the entire country. So it needed some kind of elixir, and Doane Robinson thought tourism might be one of them. He did, yeah. There were a bunch of cars and car tourists that were driving around that part of the country. What do we do? What do we do? He felt it would be a really great idea to carve sculptures into the Black Hills to attract these tourists that were moving around the state at the time. So his idea was to create figures that were representative of the American West. But not the figures we see on Mount Rushmore. Not the figures we see on Mount Rushmore. And that's crucial to the story, because the idea that Doane Robinson had was really an economic idea. It was one of tourism. He wanted to diversify the economy. But when Doane Robinson hired Gunston Borglum as the sculptor, the idea began to shift to one of politics. Economics was still there, of course, but the political aspect of it really got going. And Doane was okay with the idea of this original monument in his mind representing key American, white American figures of Western expansion, but also native peoples. Well, Doane initially did want to have the Lakota leader, Red Cloud. Wanted to have Lewis and Clark, Custer, Sacagawea, who was the guide for Lewis and Clark. And so Doane Robinson's idea was much more diverse in terms of what it ended up becoming. But it should be said that Doane Robinson wasn't necessarily upset in the direction that Mount Rushmore eventually went to. He had, especially initially, a great deal of awe and respect for Gunston Borglum, the sculptor. Talk to my audience about who Gunston Borglum was and the complexities in his life. He is a fascinating character, a fascinating man. He is an amazing artist, very talented artist, who really grew up from the middle of American earth. I mean, he was born to a Mormon immigrant family from Denmark, and he was born in what is now Idaho. But as his family moved west, or excuse me, moved east, the polygamy that his father practiced became more illegal as they moved east. And so Gunston Borglum, his birth mom was a woman named Christina Mickelson. And she was married to his father, but so was her sister. So the two sisters were married to the same man. Gunston happened to be born to the younger of the two sisters. And when they came to the middle of the United States and the polygamy was illegal, they had to make a decision. And the decision was to ask Gunston's mother to leave the family. And so when Gunston was five years old, he said goodbye to his mother for the first time. He said goodbye to his mother, and that was it, he never saw her again. So it was a very traumatic experience for young Gunston. But he eventually moved to Los Angeles as a teenager, really developed his artwork, became passionate about art, went to Europe for about a decade there, and really grew as an artist, as a sculptor. He was someone who studied with and learned a lot about Auguste Rodin, the French sculptor. And when he came back to the United States in the early 20th century, he said, I'm gonna be a sculptor, and I'm gonna be an American sculptor. You can listen to the rest of my conversation with Matthew Davis on your favorite podcast platform.

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