Description:
The Washington Monument is located in the center of the National Mall between the United States Capitol and Lincoln Memorial. The monument itself was erected to honor the first president as well as serving commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, George Washington. When it was first built completing a height of approximately 555 feet, the Washington Monument once served to be one tallest building in the world. The monument still holds the record for being the world tallest stone structure and obelisk. Constructed between 1848 and 1884, the establishment of this monument took place in two stages, one in 1848-56, and the another in 1876-84. The main reason for this delay was due to the Civil War as well as insufficient funds.
General History:
It can be argued that the establishment of a national monument began as early as 1783. At the time, Major Pierre Charles L'Enfant approached Congress and requested that an equestrian statue of George Washington be built. Congress allowed the action to follow through but no one took the initiative until Washington died in 1799. His death aspired the public to erect a memorial for him, it was then that John Marshall submitted a proposal that a mausoleum should be built within the Capitol for the first president. However, a lack of funds led to the postponement of the construction, but Marshall was persistent in completing this project. In 1833 John Marshall and James Madison created the Washington National Monument Society in which, by 1836, the association was advertising for several competitive architectural designs. The design of Robert Mills was chosen which he proposed a neoclassical style that would have a nearly-flat-topped obelisk that would be encircled by a circular colonnade which would be used to display a statue of Washington in a chariot.
The original designer of the Washington monument was Robert Mills, who began the construction in 1848 when the cornerstone was laid on the Fourth of July. In the pre-American Civil War period, a political group known as the “Know Nothing” Party's rose to power and took authority over the Washington National Monument Society through the process of an illegal election. In addition, lack of funding was another reason why construction in 1854 came to a halt. By the time construction was able to resume, in 1876, the marble and the quarry that was originally used ceased to exist thus builders had to extract marble from a different quarry. Lt Col Thomas L. Casey, who was Mills' successor, proceeded to make revisions to Mills’ original plan in which Casey was aiming towards an unadorned Egyptian obelisk with a pointed pyramidion while Mills’ called for an unembellished obelisk. Furthermore, with time and weather erosion, the original marble that was already used turned into a different in color and this marble was at the 150-foot mark. On February 21, 1885, the monument was dedicated. Four years later, in 1888, the United States Army Corps of Engineers added an elevator to the monument thus finalizing the construction of the monument. The Washington Monument opened to the public on October 9, 1888.
Symbolism/Analysis:
The Washington Monument weights a total of 81,120 tons, a height of 555' 5-1/8", a wall thickness of 15' while 18'' at the base of the upper shaft. The structure is made up primarily of white marble from Maryland, several from Massachusetts, and is underlain by Maryland blue gneiss and Maine granite. At the 150', a slight color is present and this is due to the slow, inefficient process of the construction of the monument in 1854. The interior walls hold 193 memorial stones which were presented by various individuals, societies, cities, States, and nations from around the world. The structure is connected to an independent iron framework and has a total of flights of 896 steps which surround the elevator that takes visitors to the observation level, and look over the city of Washington D.C. through the monument's pyramidion windo
