Video Transcript – Mount Rushmore – U.S. Geography for Kids! Video
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Transcribed by YouTube Transcription for www.Miacademy.co
Justin [0:00]
Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe… Jackson? No, no, no, no. Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, John Quincy Adams… No, no, no, no! Washington, Adams, Jeff- Oh, hey! I didn’t see you there. I was, uh, trying to remember the names of all the U.S. presidents in order. I was not getting very far, that’s for sure. That’s okay, I’ll worry about that later! Today, I want to talk about these presidents – George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt. Because in this video, you’re gonna learn what all four of these presidents have in common, and not only their importance in American history but America’s landscape as well. So, let’s explore Mount Rushmore, an amazing national landmark in the United States!
[1:27]
Mount Rushmore is a historic landmark in the United States. In 1986, it was added to the National Register for Historic Places, meaning it’s part of a large program that takes care of historic places and resources. This lesson will be taking us to the Midwest region of the United States, and more
specifically, the state of South Dakota. And more specifically than that, an area in South Dakota known as the Black Hills. The Black Hills were given its name by the Lakota Indians, who always believed that this area was sacred ground. If we look a little closer, we can see that there is a monument inscribed into a mountain here. Mount Rushmore. Here we could see a monument of faces – look at that – carved into the side of a mountain!
[2:24]
This whole area is called the Mount Rushmore National Memorial and it represents the story of American history, which we’ll get to in a moment. The story about how this national monument got built is also pretty interesting, but we’ll talk about that later. For now, let’s do a little quiz. Which of these following facts about Mount Rushmore is not true? A. It was carved entirely by just 2 men. B. It’s got a secret room inside of it. C. It took over 14 years to complete. Or D. It was built to attract tourists. Well, if you said A, you’d be correct. That’s the only fact here that’s not true. The truth is over 400 men risked their lives to create this thing and all of them survived. That’s actually pretty unusual for the time period and given the monumental scale of the project. See what I- Moving on!
[3:45]
Here, you can see the faces of four American presidents carved into a mountain. They’re the presidents I mentioned earlier – George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt. So, wait a second, where’s President Rushmore? I mean, the whole thing’s called Mount Rushmore, shouldn’t the guy’s head be on it, right? Well, there was no President Rushmore, but Mount Rushmore was named after a real person and the story about that’s pretty interesting.
[4:19]
Okay, so imagine that you’re in a far away town on some business, and you’re staying there and you get to know some of the townspeople that live there, right? And then let’s say, one day, you’re walking out enjoying nature and you come across this big beautiful mountain. And so, you turn to the townsperson next to you and you’re like, “Hey, excuse me, that’s a really nice mountain you got there. What’s it called?” And the townsperson’s like, “Oh, that’s… well, we don’t really call it anything, it doesn’t have a name.” And so you’re like, “Huh. Okay, okay, that’s kind of weird. Well, it’s a really nice mountain. Really, really nice.” And they’re like, “You know what? It’s got a name now! We’ll name it after you. How about that, huh?” And that’s not too far off from what happened with Mount Rushmore.
[5:10]
Charles Rushmore was a lawyer who lived in New York and went to South Dakota on some business that had to do with a mine. At that time, the area was known for having plenty of gold mines and tin mines, too. So, Charles Rushmore stayed in town for several weeks and got to know some of the miners that were stationed in the area to work on the mine. Actually, you know what? Charles Rushmore wrote a letter about this! Yeah, he wrote it to a man named Doane Robinson. Robinson was actually the first person to suggest building a big monument in the state of South Dakota in order to bring more tourists in. He thought, “Gee, well, we’re all the way out here in the west and we’d sure love some more people to come visit us, so why don’t we make something so cool that people will want to come and see it?” And so here’s part of the letter that Charles Rushmore wrote to Doane Robinson.
[6:11]
“I was deeply impressed with the Hills, and particularly with a mountain of granite rock that rose above the neighboring peaks. On one occasion while looking from near its base, with almost awe at this majestic pile, I asked of the men who were with me for its name. They said it had no name, but one of them spoke up and said ‘We will name it now, and name it Rushmore Peak.’ That was the origin of the name it bears, and, as I have been informed, it is called Rushmore Peak, Rushmore Mountain, and also Rushmore Rock.” And there you go! You never know, show a little curiosity and maybe you’ll get something named after you!
[6:57]
Now, this all happened in the late 1800s. The monument came long after that, so this whole naming thing was about the actual mountain itself. Although, years later, Charles Rushmore himself donated $5,000 to the completion of the monument. That’s a lot of money today, and it was really a lot of money back then. So, let’s go back to the beginning. Back when the monument was just an idea, a concept waiting to be brought into reality. I mentioned a guy by the name of Doane Robinson, he was the person that Charles Rushmore wrote that letter to. Well, he was also the state historian of South Dakota and in 1923, he wanted more people around the U.S. to come visit his beautiful state. Hmm, I wonder what’s a good idea to bring more people to our state? How about a 60-foot tall sculpture carved into the side of a mountain? Sounds like a good idea!
[8:04]
Doane Robinson wanted to make a huge sculpture made out of carvings of famous western explorers and heroes. He suggested carvings of Buffalo Bill Cody, Merriweather Lewis and William Clark, and the Lakota leader, Red Cloud. These are some of the most famous heroes in the west. This idea was nixed. Lots of people argued in favor of making the sculpture out of American presidents, thinking that if it was made out of them, more people would be interested in it from around the country, instead of just the people who lived out west. So, it was decided that the monument would be made out of the presidents Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Roosevelt.
[8:51]
Mount Rushmore National Memorial certainly does bring a lot of people to the Black Hills of South Dakota. It attracts over 3 million people a year. But, why did they choose these four presidents? We start with George Washington, the first president of the United States. He represents the birth of our nation. While Thomas Jefferson was president, he doubled the size of the country. He represents expansion. Abraham Lincoln brought the country together during the Civil War. He unified us, so he represents unification. Finally, Teddy Roosevelt fought hard to preserve and save natural spaces throughout the country, so he represents preservation. Together, they all represent 150 years of American history.
[9:49]
But let’s get back to how the monument came from concept to reality. Have you ever had to work on a project and you got really frustrated because you couldn’t just get it done quickly and do it right the first time? Well, it may make you happy to know that even experts have to constantly change and rework their plans. The artists in charge of designing the monument created several models before everyone decided on the final sculpture. At first, only Washington and Lincoln were going to be depicted on the monument. Next. Initially, all of the presidents were supposed to have bodies too, not just heads, but that idea didn’t fly. Not enough money. Next! Plans kept changing and changing back and changing again. In fact, nine different models were made before everyone was happy.
[10:45]
But get this – even once the carving began, plans had to change. See, originally thomas Jefferson was on the other side of George Washington like you can see in this historical photo. But that area of the mountain turned out to not be great for carving. Of course, this is something you never know until you actually went up there and started doing the work. So, Thomas Jefferson’s face got blown off with dynamite and re-carved onto the other side of George Washington, where he is today. The idea for Mount Rushmore first came about in 1923. Fast forward to 1927, four years later, and that’s when work began.
[11:30]
Carving specific facial features into the side of a mountain. Easy peasy, right? No! First off, who’s gonna do all the work? Miners – there were a lot of miners in the area because there was gold in them there hills. And not just some miners, 400 of them! They risked their lives every day to get up that mountain, carve the rock, and make the monument look like the artist’s drawings. How did they carve the rock anyway? Dynamite! The miners had experience using explosives in their mine work, so they knew what they were doing. Big chunks of rock were blown off the side of the mountain using dynamite, and then for the final details, they’d use jackhammers.
[12:22]
Some jackhammers would go through 400 drill bits in a single day. That’s some tough rock. And then, for even more detail, the miners would use what they call a honeycomb technique – they drill holes into the side of the mountain a few inches apart from each other and then use a chisel to carefully remove bits of rock that would slowly fall off the mountain. And then, for even more detail and some smoothing, they’d use a tool called an air hammer. They went over every square inch of the faces to smooth them out. Alright, so how much rock did they end up carving off of this mountain to make the sculpture? About half a million tons! That’s the weight of of 450 jumbo jets.
[13:23]
A few years before the entire monument was completed, Congress tried to pass a bill to add another face to Mount Rushmore. They wanted to put Susan B. Anthony up there. She was a very important person who helped get women the right to vote, but that idea was struck down. Construction had already been going on for 10 years at this point and people didn’t want to make a whole new head from scratch. Finally, in 1941, 14 years after construction began, the Mount Rushmore monument was finally completed. Oh wait, I almost forgot to tell you about the secret room! Don’t tell people, because visitors can’t go in there, but there is a secret room like a cave buried in Lincoln’s head.
[14:24]
In the 1930s, Borglum, the artist, designed the room to hold important documents and items that told the story of the entire history of the U.S. It’s called the Hall of Records. He wanted one part of the room to hold copies of the Bill of Rights and another one to have the Constitution. One for the Gettysburg Address, and so on, and so on. You know, I don’t actually know what’s in the Hall of Records nowadays. Maybe that’s something cool that you could research on your own. Discover what hidden treasures lie deep in Abe Lincoln’s head! Well, visitors can’t go into that room, but there’s still plenty of things to see at the monuments besides the sculpture itself. There’s an artist’s studio. There you can see a 20-foot model that the artist used, complete with special details that the artist put in, but didn’t end up on the final carving itself.
[15:24]
Also on display in the studio is a bosun chair that the carvers used as they hung over the side of the mountain to do their work. It’s similar to the ones that climbers use. There’s the avenue of flags leading the way up to the monument. All around the area are trails with spectacular views and the memorial also puts on an amazing night show. Now, as amazing and impressive as this monument is, not everyone thought it was a good idea. Remember, the Mount Rushmore monument represents different times and events in U.S. history. For the Lakota Sioux Native Americans, a lot of those times were filled with struggles and hardship. And I mentioned earlier, they believed that this mountain is part of their sacred land – land that was taken away from them once gold was discovered there.
[16:21]
So, in 1939, a few years before the Mount Rushmore monument was completed, a Sioux chief by the name of Standing Bear wanted a completely different monument to be created, one that would honor the Sioux nation. He hired a sculptor to create a memorial on a completely different mountain, one in honor of a Lakota chief named Crazy Horse. The carving of the face was completed in 1998, but the rest of the monuments was never finished. But you could still visit the Crazy Horse Memorial and visit the museums, see artifacts, catch a laser night show, and learn about the stories that made up this monument and what the monument represents.
[17:09]
And now you know that if you ever see a statue or a landmark, like Mount Rushmore, you’ll know that it’s not just a piece of art, but it holds many stories within it. It’d be fun to do some research on your own. See what cool things you can discover about the Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse monuments. That’s about it for today. And as always friends, remember to always be clever!