Mount Rushmore's History
Jeffery Mingo | Homewood, IL USA | 07/11/2005
(3 out of 5 stars)
"I am always fascinated by what the American Experience series chooses to cover. At first, I thought this would just be about a monument, but it's much more about the man behind it.
Mount Rushmore was born of historical circumstances. South Dakotan (white only? Why are the Lakota absent from this documentary?) men needed jobs. The Dust Bowl and the Great Depression were taking place. Often the rock was too porous and had to be resculpted.
I love the way the AE series covers America, warts and all. This piece said that the sculptor Borglum was xenophobic, racist, and anti-Jewish, on top of being an egomaniac. It said he choose Theodore Roosevelt just because he was a friend. Clearly I'm not placing this guy in my list of heroes.
I enjoyed other works in the series MUCH more than this one. However, if you want to know a bit more about Mount Rushmore, than why not peep this documentary?"