Great White Fathers: The Story of the Obsessive Quest to Create Mount Rushmore

by John Taliaferro

Book 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... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1891620983
• ISBN13: 9781891620980
• Release Date: November 2002
• Publisher: PublicAffairs
• Length: 464 Pages
• Weight: 1.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 7.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Carver of mountains

In addition to being an excellent biography of Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor of Mount Rushmore, this book is also a fine examination of the South Dakotan monument itself. Borglum was a difficult artist: conceited, overly opinionated, and confrontational. Early in his career he developed a pattern of behavior that would mark most of his years as an artist: he would "demand control, ruffle feathers, allege conspiracy, exaggerate evil, throw down the gauntlet, burn the bridge - and lastly, foul the nest." He often criticized publicly (and harshly) the works of other sculptors, especially if they were chosen over his own works in competitions or commissions. But his artistic vision was large and his ability to carve beauty out of mountainsides unmatched. Taliaferro traces Borglum's life, including the time during the 1920s while working on Stone Mountain near Atlanta when he was a member of the KKK - often glossed over by others dealing with the artist's career (the NPS at Mt. Rushmore, for example). And Taliaferro also writes about the monument after Borglum's death, including when Alfred Hitchcock used the monument in "North By Nothwest" and the Sioux Indian protests over Black Hills land ownership during the early 1970s. Taliaferro is an excellent writer, and his final chapter which involves an account of an Independence Day 2001 re-visit he made to the monument is an engaging conclusion to this interesting book. Recommended.

One of the best historical biographies I've read

A compelling description of a man's motivation, relationships, and excessive personality, it almost reads like a novel. And what detail! The additional insights into other historical figures (including characters like Calvin Coolidge) really made it not just a book about Borglum or Rushmore (or Stone Mountain) but an insider's look at a whole period of American history. Surprise your favorite non-fiction buff with this one from off the beaten path.

A sometimes ugly, but compelling story

This is a book worth seeking out for those interested in the history of the Black Hills, the American west and in the story of how this unique and monumental sculpture came to be. Taliaferro will be known by some for his fine biography of cowboy artist Charlie Russell, but this time his main subject, the great Gutzon Borglum, whom some have compared to Rodin, is a much less likeable artist. He turns on his friends, is impossible to work with, and scapegoats with racist and antisemitic prejudices (he was an active member of the revitalized Klan) when things don't go his way. Nevertheless, as an artist he was brilliant, and Taliaferro tells his story, not just of the carving of Mt. Rushmore, but of Stone Mountain in Georgia and other controversial but masterful sculptures, particularly of Lincoln.Borglum (1867-1941) knew Teddy Roosevelt, championing him as a westerner deserving of his place on Mount Rushmore with Washington, Jefferson, and the Lincoln. He also knew the Wright Brothers, Lindbergh, Helen Keller, FDR, Woodrow Wilson, Coolidge, Frank Lloyd Wright, and other notables of his time, and was an inveterate social climber, and Taliaferro tells of these relationships. Taliaferro writes about the attempts to place a fifth face on the mountain, be it Susan B. Anthony, Crazy Horse, or Ronald Reagan. The book is also about our perception of various presidents. He also writes with sensitivity and insight, but not with sentimentality, about the Native Americans in the Black Hills, bringing to the story Custer, Hickok, Wounded Knee, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, the AIM movement, others, and the fight over the federal government's siezing of land promised eternally to the Sioux. It's often an ugly, if compelling story.

Man and Monument, both Colossal

Gutzon Borglum's name is hardly a household word, but every American knows his greatest work. He was the sculptor that put the faces on Mount Rushmore National Memorial. The enormous heads in the South Dakota rock look calmly out to the great beyond, almost as if they were natural formations. Their conception and completion were far from calm, however, and in _Great White Fathers: The Story of the Obsessive Quest to Create Mount Rushmore_ (PublicAffairs), John Taliaferro has told the tumultuous story of Borglum's life and life work, as well as the turbulent history of the mountain itself.Borglum was a bigger than life figure who insisted on puffing himself up any way he could. He insisted that he was the American Phidias, and like many such supremely confident people, he was torn by the idea that others were plotting against him. He returned from art training in Europe to find that his nation was enthusiastic about commemorative sculpture, and he began entering competitions for such things as the design for the memorial to Ulysses S. Grant. He did not win that one, and groused that the jury suspected his entry could not have been made by an American, so they disqualified it. He had similar excuses and similar paranoia in many of his failed endeavors. The Daughters of the American Confederacy approached him in 1914 to carve a memorial on the side of Stone Mountain in Georgia. He signed on to do the work, which the Ku Klux Klan supported financially. And Borglum supported the Klan. He did not become an officially robed member of the organization, but he attended its rallies and supported its aims. He was fired from the job, but the boosters who hired him for South Dakota didn't know about any such problems. He worked for it for decades, dying of cancer in 1941, whereupon Congress declared the monument finished.Taliaferro has not just written a biography of Borglum, and a fascinating history of the big project, but also a history of the mountain. He includes the Indian Wars of the 1870s, the shameful violations of treaties made with the Indians, and the labor to match the faces of the great white fathers with an even bigger sculpture of Crazy Horse on a nearby mountain. He covers the demonstrations and protests that have been centered at Rushmore in recent decades. The Lakota tribe frequented the Rushmore mountain for centuries for specific ritual purposes, and it is not surprising that they should feel a loss from when the mountain was in its natural state. Taliaferro even includes a description of a recent biker festival, and of course a few pages about Hitchcock's use of the setting in _North by Northwest_. His book even includes reports of the campaigns to have Ronald Reagan added to the mountain, and Elvis Presley, and the most longstanding and fervent campaign, that for Susan B. Anthony. It is an entertaining historic, geologic, and artistic tour.

Encyclopedic and entertaining

The Editorial Review above is correct in saying "Taliaferro discusses every conceivable aspect of the monument." The book serves as a biography of sculptor Gutzon Borglum, giving us chapters about his early life and other sculptures prior to Mt. Rushmore. There are chapters devoted to the local Indians and President Coolidge's very brief visit as well. If it has anything to do with the history of Mt. Rushmore, it's in this book. Lucky for us, Taliaferro is skilful writer/historian. This book is never dull or pedantic; it's always fascinating and entertaining. With books like this, I sometimes find myself skipping forward over the slow parts. "Great White Fathers," like Taliaferro's biography of Edgar Rice Burroughs, "Tarzan Forever", contains no slow parts.