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Overview
Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor of Mount Rushmore National Memorial, hoped that ten thousand years from now, when archaeologists came upon the four sixty-foot presidential heads carved in the Black Hills of South Dakota, they would have a clear and graphic understanding of American civilization.Borglum, the child of Mormon polygamists, had an almost Ahab-like obsession with Colossalism--a scale that matched his ego and the era. He learned how to be a celebrity from Auguste Rodin; how to be a political bully from Teddy Roosevelt. He ran with the Ku Klux Klan and mingled with the rich and famous from Wall Street to Washington. Mount Rushmore was to be his crowning achievement, the newest wonder of the world, the greatest piece of public art since Phidias carved the Parthenon.
But like so many episodes in the saga of the American West, what began as a personal dream had to be bailed out by the federal government, a compromise that nearly drove Borglum mad. Nor in the end could he control how his masterpiece would be received. Nor its devastating impact on the Lakota Sioux and the remote Black Hills of South Dakota.
Great White Fathers is at once the biography of a man and the biography of a place, told through travelogue, interviews, and investigation of the unusual records that one odd American visionary left behind. It proves that the best American stories are not simple; they are complex and contradictory, at times humorous, at other times tragic.
Synopsis
"John Taliaferro has done a brilliant job of making the carving of Mount Rushmore vivid for us today. The story is absorbing and the book is a wonderful read."
Larry McMurtry, author of Lonesome Dove
Forbes FYI
Taliaferro tells that story [of Rushmore's construction] in clear, colorful terms...Taliaferro's narrative sparkles whenever [Borglum] is in it.\
Editorials
From Barnes & Noble
Barnes & Noble Discover Great New WritersIf ever there was a book that could make one long to visit an American landmark, this is it. John Taliaferro's insightful account of the sculpting of Mount Rushmore is both a telling piece of art history and an enthralling analysis of the cultural, technological, and political forces that helped shape this singular monument in the Black Hills of South Dakota.
The story begins in the mid-19th century, when the promise of gold sent prospectors rushing to the Great Plains, fueling bloody battles between U.S. Army and the Sioux. The irony that this American shrine was built on land wrested from Native Americans (in violation of government treaties) is not lost on Taliaferro. But when the end of World War I brought an economic slump to the region, politicians began wondering if they could boost the flagging economy through tourism. And the budding interstate highway system convinced them that with the right attraction, they could appeal to vacationers traveling by car.
Gutzon Borglum, a talented but temperamental sculptor, was chosen to carve Mount Rushmore. Taliaferro tells how Borglum began the project in 1927, and his description of the efforts required to create the images of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt into the face of the mountain is breathtaking. The monument was still under construction at the time of Borglum's death in 1941. Today, Mount Rushmore is considered alternately a symbol of democracy, a desecration of nature, and a tourist trap. But as Taliaferro aptly reveals in this captivating history, it is truly "a mirror of our culture" worth further examination. (Winter 2002 Selection)
New York Times Book Review
Taliaferro...tells a wide-ranging story...Briskly written, never dull, and it never bogs down.From The Critics
It takes a skilled writer and reporter to make an old, familiar story fresh, and in his book... Taliaferro excels.Boston Globe
Taliaferro's description of how [Mount Rushmore] came to be makes for a surprisingly colorful and entertaining history lesson here and now.—2002.