VINTAGE POSTCARDS 1945
Mount Rushmore (1,745 m - 5,725 feet)
United States of America (South Dakota)
1. In Greetings from Mount Rushmore, colored postcard, 1945
2. In Mount Rushmore (Six Grandfathers) before it was carved, 1905
The Mountain
Mount Rushmore (1,745 m - 5,725 feet) originally know by the Sioux Dakota as The Six Grandftahers is a batholith in the Black Hills in Keystone, South Dakota, United States. The mountain was renamed after Charles E. Rushmore, a prominent New York lawyer, during an expedition in 1885. The memorial is carved on the northwest margin of the Black Elk Peak granite batholith, so the geologic formations of the heart of the Black Hills region are also evident at Mount Rushmore. The batholith magma intruded into the pre-existing mica schist rocks during the Proterozoic, 1.6 billion years ago. Coarse grained pegmatite dikes are associated with the granite intrusion of Black Elk Peak and are visibly lighter in color, thus explaining the light-colored streaks on the foreheads of the presidents.
Sculptor Gutzon Borglum created the sculpture's design and oversaw the project's execution from 1927-1941 with the help of his son, Lincoln Borglum. Mount Rushmore features 60-foot (18 m) sculptures of the heads of four United States presidents: George Washington (1732–1799), Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919), and Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865).
The United States seized the area from the Lakota tribe after the Great Sioux War of 1876. The Treaty of Fort Laramie from 1868 had previously granted the Black Hills to the Lakota in perpetuity. Members of the American Indian Movement led an occupation of the monument in 1971, naming it "Mount Crazy Horse". Among the participants were young activists, grandparents, children and Lakota holy man John Fire Lame Deer, who planted a prayer staff atop the mountain. Lame Deer said the staff formed a symbolic shroud over the presidents' faces "which shall remain dirty until the treaties concerning the Black Hills are fulfilled."
In 2004, the first Native American superintendent of the park, Gerard Baker, was appointed. Baker has stated that he will open up more "avenues of interpretation", and that the four presidents are "only one avenue and only one focus."
The Crazy Horse Memorial is being constructed elsewhere in the Black Hills to commemorate the famous Native American leader as a response to Mount Rushmore. It is said to be larger than Mount Rushmore and has the support of Lakota chiefs; the Crazy Horse Memorial Foundation has rejected offers of federal funds. However, this memorial is likewise the subject of controversy, even within the Native American community.
