Mount Rushmore

Mount Rushmore is a mountain in the Black Hills, South Dakota in the United States. The mountain chain owes its name to the New York lawyer Charles Rushmore, who had originally purchased the gold mining rights for the area.

The Mount Rushmore National Memorial is a monument consisting of monumental portrait heads of the four (up to the time of its creation) as the most important and most symbolic applicable U.S. president. Each portrait is 18 m high. Are shown from left to right, President George Washington ( first U.S. President ), Thomas Jefferson ( 3 ) Theodore Roosevelt ( 26 ) and Abraham Lincoln ( 16 ). Before the monument excerpts from famous speeches of the four presidents are read on signboards. The Mount Rushmore National Memorial is also known as the Shrine of Democracy ( Holy Shrine of Democracy ). The Lakota Indians see the monument, however, as a desecration of their sacred mountain.

The monument is located near Keystone, South Dakota and is managed with the appropriate museum of the National Park Service. Construction was completed in 1941.

History

The monument was blown up by John Gutzon de la Mothe Borglum (1867-1941) in 14 summers 1927-1941 in the granite of Mount Rushmore, carved and sculpted. For the portrait of George Washington in 1930 construction began. With Thomas Jefferson's portrait was begun in 1936 right next to it. 1937 began with the head of Abraham Lincoln and from 1939 was taken up in the alcove the portrait of Theodore Roosevelt addressed.

With respect to total work Gutzon was supported by almost 400 workers and helpers. He himself died before the completion of the artwork. His son Lincoln Borglum continued the work for a few months on, until they were discontinued for lack of funds in October 1941 and the monument was declared on 31 October 1941 completed. A planned expansion of the figures up to waist height was never executed.

Use in media

The Mount Rushmore monument is the backdrop of various feature films. Among the most famous shot in Monument movie scenes of dramatic showdown of the film is one of North by Northwest by Alfred Hitchcock, in which Eva Marie Saint and Cary Grant fight between the president heads for their lives.

In the film Mars Attacks! the Mount Rushmore Memorial is operated by the aliens with the laser of their spaceship. After the smoke has cleared, you can see instead of the four presidential faces four alien heads. In many other science fiction productions, the motif is used, Mount Rushmore to supplement another head, mostly it involves an unimaginable for the ratios of the time of production president, for example, a woman, a black man or an alien. Representations with such a complement to a fifth head, there are, for example, in the series ALF ( Episode The dream candidate), Doctor Who and Futurama.

The cover of the album Deep Purple in Rock (German as " Deep Purple in Rock " interpretable ) shows the faces of the members of the band, carved in place of the U.S. President in the rock of Mount Rushmore.