Washington Monument: History, Construction, and Restoration

Origins and Early Controversy

The Washington Monument was conceived prior to the death of George Washington to commemorate his works and his position as the first president of the new nation. The plans and progress of the monument developed amid controversy and took many years to complete, as a result of political and social upheaval — some of which culminated in the Civil War. It is one of the oldest monuments in the nation and is representative of the struggle for national development as much as it is representative of the skill and political legacy of the president it is named for.

The undertaking began in the eighteenth century, when Washington was still alive, then ran into partisan warfare after his death and floundered for decades in unending disputes over designs and intentions. As Senie and Webster observe, "the national enterprise forced an issue that could not be swept away by simple appeals to patriotism. If Washington was the founding father, what kind of nation did he found?" The trouble originated, after Washington's death, in a profound ideological dispute over the nature of the republic. As new disputes followed, the campaign to unify around Washington's memory continued to betray significant fissures in the American self-image. Not even the Civil War could end the discord; it took another twenty years to bring the memorial to completion (Senie and Webster 6).

The plans had evolved as much as the nation had, along with the memory of Washington and his mission and achievements. As Senie and Webster further note, "the blank shaft was in no way built by consensus. It was instead the achievement of an engineer working in virtual secrecy, outside the political process and against the protests of the artistic community. In fact, Washington's monument could be finished only by obliterating his traces in the process, not only from the structure itself but also from the discussion surrounding it." The more one examines the so-called "resolution" the monument represents, the more unsettling it appears, and the more unsettled the critical reactions to it seem. The engineered unity of this soaring obelisk gave the nation an image of its own destiny — an image at once powerfully appealing and yet in many ways troubling to this day (Senie and Webster 6).

The end product is both troubling and monumental, representative of a function in public discourse that developed over time to meet the needs of only a few, even though it was meant to represent all.

Design, Location, and Engineering Challenges

The building of the monument was complicated and costly for its time, and its placement was hotly debated, being considered inconsistent with plans for a landscaped park near the capital (Federal Writers' Project 91, 95).

Pierre Charles L'Enfant, in his original plan for the capital, fixed the site for a monument to George Washington at the point where a line drawn due west from the center of the Capitol intersected a line drawn due south from the center of the President's House. Along the east–west axis thus created, he designed a "Grand Avenue, 400 feet in breadth, and about a mile in length, bordered with gardens" — the present National Mall. His plan states that "this avenue leads to the Monument, and connects the Congress Garden (at the west entrance to the Capitol) with the President's Park," the latter being laid out along the north–south axis from the President's House to the Potomac River. L'Enfant intended this impressive avenue to afford suitable frontage for "spacious houses and gardens such as may accommodate foreign ministers, etc." (Federal Writers' Project 92).

Engineering concerns ultimately won the day in determining the final site, and even today there are structural concerns about the monument's location so close to sea level — only 40 feet above the banks of the Potomac River. There are still occasions when portions of the surrounding park are underwater, and the monument area itself has been subject to flooding. Locating a sufficient footing for a project of the monument's weight and size proved especially difficult (Federal Writers' Project 18).

It is not only ironic but also somehow troubling that a monument designed covertly, against enormous opposition, should so neatly reconcile so many competing ideals — ancient tradition and modern technology, republican values and national progress, communal harmony and individual enterprise (Senie and Webster 24, 26).

Construction and Completion

There were times during the approximately twenty years it took to complete the monument when many believed the project was dead (Federal Writers' Project 53). Though the cornerstone had been laid many years earlier, in 1848, and the structure had been begun as a simple shaft, the redesigning engineer ultimately created an Egyptian-style obelisk that lacked any external ornamentation (Federal Writers' Project 322). Construction commenced utilizing many men and significant quantities of materials to complete the structure.

On February 21, 1885, Robert Winthrop, who had delivered the formal address at the laying of the cornerstone 37 years before, dedicated the Washington Monument. On October 9, 1888, it was opened to the public. More than a century had passed since its inception (Federal Writers' Project 322).

Conclusion

The building had created as much controversy as it created pride, and its completion took a substantially longer time than had ever been envisioned by its creators and those who debated over its final form. The Washington Monument stands today as a powerful national symbol, yet its history reveals the deep ideological tensions and competing visions of American identity that shaped — and continue to surround — one of the country's most recognizable structures. As a work of public art and civic commemoration, it remains as instructive about the conflicts of American democracy as it is about the achievements of the president it honors.

Works Cited

Federal Writers' Project. Washington, City and Capital: Federal Writers' Project, Works Progress Administration. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1937.

Reiter, Bill. "Monumental Restoration." Insight on the News 17 Aug. 1998: 41.

Senie, Harriet F., and Sally Webster, eds. Critical Issues in Public Art: Content, Context, and Controversy. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1992.