The Washington Monument

Podcast Transcript

Almost immediately after the death of George Washington in 1799, the United States began to think of ways to commemorate and honor the father of the country.

The process of creating a monument took decades. There were multiple aborted designs and one idea that was built but never fully implemented.

What ended up being constructed became the world’s tallest structure at the time and became the icon that defines the city of Washington, DC.

Learn more about the Washington Monument, why it was built, and how on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

It is hard to express just how revered George Washington was in the early United States.

Washington led the Continental Army, which won independence for the United States. After achieving victory, he retired to a plantation in Virginia.

He was then elected president of the Constitutional Convention, and when the time came to select the first president, he was the only person whom everyone could agree on.

He was the only person to be elected unanimously by the electoral college, and he did so twice.

Then, after being made the most powerful man in the country, he voluntarily stepped away from power, which established a precedent that lasted for 150 years.

His willingness to step away from power earned him the nickname the “American Cincinnatus” after the ancient Roman who retired to his farm after being given the power of a dictator.

Even before his death in 1799, there were efforts to memorialize the man. On August 7, 1783, the Continental Congress resolved to erect an equestrian statue of Washington. Pierre L’Enfant, the designer of Washington, then reserved a prime site for that statue in his 1791 plan for the federal city, making a memorial to Washington part of the capital’s symbolic core from the start.

The first attempt to create a monument for George Washington took place soon after his death on December 14, 1799.

Congress passed a joint resolution to erect a marble monument to him in the new Capitol building and to place his remains “under” it, provided his family agreed. The Capitol Building’s main rotunda hadn’t been constructed yet, but the idea was that Washington’s tomb would be located directly under the center of the dome.

President John Adams wrote to Martha Washington, and she consented in late December. Congress then transmitted her letter as a formal resolution on January 8, 1800.

Because of that resolution, the architects incorporated a burial chamber two stories beneath the future Rotunda, directly on the central axis of the Capitol. The chamber, which still exists today, is called “Washington’s Tomb,” and the circular room above it became the Crypt, which was intended to serve as the approach to the tomb.

The design even contemplated a round opening in the Rotunda floor so visitors could look down at a statue and the sarcophagus below. The center section with the Rotunda and Crypt was not finished until 1827.

Washington’s will, however, directed that he be buried at Mount Vernon and that a more secure brick family tomb be built there to replace the decaying vault. Although Martha had agreed to moving her husbands tomb to the Capitol, the government never completed the transfer in 1800.

After the War of 1812, Congress returned to the idea and took it up again several times, including 1816 and 1824, and then with new energy as the 1832 centennial of Washington’s birth approached. Plans were made to complete the Capitol tomb and move the remains during the centennial observances, and the Crypt itself was readied with this purpose in mind.

Events at Mount Vernon halted the plan. In 1830, a vandal broke into the old family vault in an attempt to steal Washington’s skull and instead desecrated the remains of a relative.

The violation accelerated the decision by Washington’s heirs to build the new brick tomb at Mount Vernon in 1831, in line with his will. When Congress again pressed the issue in 1832 to bring the body to the Capitol, the family refused to remove him from the new vault. The congressional project thus collapsed, and the Capitol tomb has remained empty ever since.

With this failure in creating the tomb, which would have been located in the center of the city, efforts changed.

In 1833, private citizens formed the Washington National Monument Society, recognizing that if they wanted to see Washington properly honored, they would need to take matters into their own hands.

In 1836, after raising $28,000 in donations, equivalent to about $1,000,000 today, the Monument Society launched a design competition.

The design competition lasted for years. A winner wasn’t announced until 1845, nine years after the announcement of the competition.

The winning design by architect Robert Mills was far more elaborate than what we see today. It included the current obelisk, but it was surrounded by a massive circular colonnade 250 feet in diameter and 100 feet high.

At the base of this colonnade, Mills envisioned statues of Washington and other Revolutionary War heroes, along with representations of critical historical scenes. The obelisk itself would rise from the center of this classical temple-like structure to an unheard-of height of 600 feet.

This design reflected the neoclassical movement that dominated early American architecture, such as the Capitol building or the White House. Americans in the 1840s were consciously trying to connect their new republic to the democratic ideals of ancient Greece and Rome.

The colonnade would have made the Washington Monument resemble the great temples of antiquity, positioning Washington alongside history’s greatest leaders.

However, other proposals were submitted that reflected different philosophical approaches. Some advocated for a more modest memorial, arguing that Washington himself would have preferred simplicity over grandeur. Others proposed practical structures like a great hall or library that could serve public functions while honoring Washington’s memory.

Work began in 1848 with great fanfare, but the project would face numerous obstacles.

Initially, funding came entirely from private donations. The Monument Society organized elaborate fundraising campaigns, asking for contributions as small as one dollar to make the project truly national in scope.

This democratic approach to fundraising was revolutionary. Previous monuments were typically funded by wealthy patrons or governments. The society wanted every American to have ownership in honoring Washington.

The construction process itself was remarkably ambitious for its time. Workers had to dig the foundation 37 feet deep and 80 feet square to support the massive weight. The stones came from several quarries, each leaving its mark on the monument’s appearance.

In 1854, members of the anti-Catholic, anti-immigrant Know-Nothing Party seized control of the Monument Society in a nighttime coup. Their motivation was partly religious prejudice. Pope Pius IX had donated a block of marble from the Temple of Concord in Rome, and the Know-Nothings viewed this as papal interference in American affairs. They actually stole and destroyed the papal stone, throwing the pieces into the Potomac River.

Fun fact: In 1982, Pope John Paul II donated a replacement stone, which was installed in the stairwell at about the 300-foot level.

This incident effectively killed private fundraising. Many Americans were disgusted by the Know-Nothings’ actions, and donations dried up. Construction limped along until 1854, reaching only 152 feet before grinding to a halt. For over twenty years, the unfinished monument stood as a stark reminder of the nation’s divisions.

You can actually see different colored bands in the completed obelisk that mark periods when construction resumed with stone from different sources.

In 1876, as America celebrated its centennial, Congress finally appropriated federal funds to complete the monument. This shift from private to public funding reflected a new understanding of the federal government’s role in promoting national unity and honoring the country’s heroes.

The engineering challenges of resuming construction after such a long hiatus were immense. The Army Corps of Engineers, led by Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Casey, had to strengthen the existing foundation and figure out how to seamlessly continue construction with the original design while incorporating new engineering knowledge.

They discovered that the original foundation was insufficient for the planned height and had to reinforce it extensively.

The final design simplified Mills’ original concept significantly. Gone was the elaborate colonnade, leaving just the stark obelisk we know today. The change wasn’t just about reducing costs. It reflected how American tastes had evolved, which favored cleaner, more austere designs.

The simple obelisk actually proved more powerful than Mills’ busy original concept, creating an unadorned monument that lets Washington’s memory speak for itself.

The monument’s structure is all stone, with an internal iron frame supporting the stairs and elevator, but not the masonry. The facing is white marble over granite backing, sitting on a bluestone gneiss foundation.

Inside are nearly two hundred commemorative stones donated by states, cities, fraternal orders, and foreign governments, a fundraising device that also turned the interior into a national gallery of inscriptions and materials

On December 6, 1884, workers placed the small marble capstone and topped it with an 8.9-inch, 100-ounce pyramid of cast aluminum. Inscribed on its east face were the Latin words “Laus Deo,” which means “praise God.”

If you remember back to my episode on aluminum, at the time, aluminum was actually the most expensive metal on Earth.

The completed monument, dedicated in 1885, stands 555 feet 5? inches tall and was the world’s tallest structure until the Eiffel Tower surpassed it in 1889.

It should be noted that when Pierre L’Enfant designed the city of Washington, he had centered the original Washington statue where the axis from the White House met the axis from the Capitol. When engineers tested soils in the nineteenth century, that spot proved unstable, so the monument was shifted about 390 feet east-southeast.

The original point is marked today by the Jefferson Pier, which is a small stone block that defines one of the principal meridians around Washington.

In 1901, the monument was electrified, and an electric elevator replaced the old steam elevator.

The 1922 dedication of the Lincoln Memorial created an interesting dynamic. Suddenly, the Washington Monument wasn’t the only major presidential memorial on the National Mall. Along with the construction of the Lincoln Memorial was a reflecting pool, which sits between the two monuments today.

In 1998, the National Park Service began a top-to-bottom restoration of the Washington Monument that ran into the early 2000s, addressing a century of weathering by cleaning the exterior, patching masonry, and sealing cracks, along with mechanical and exhibit updates. The obelisk was wrapped in a custom scaffolding that traced its profile and was sheathed in a blue translucent scrim.

On September 7, 2004, the monument was closed yet again, this time for the addition of new security features, before being opened in April 2005.

In August 2011, a 5.8 magnitude earthquake, centered in Virginia, created cracks in the monument’s stone and loosened mortar, damage that forced another three-year closure for repairs.

The Washington Monument has become one of the iconic symbols of the city of Washington, DC. Yet its path to icon status was a long one.

It wasn’t built on the original site designated by Pierre L’Enfant, and the final construction didn’t quite look like what Robert Mills had designed.

Construction took decades to start, and was paused for decades more before its final completion.

The end result is a monument to the man who was primarily responsible for the independence of the United States, who guided it through its earliest years, in a city that bears his name.

George Washington.