The tea party and beyond. Thanks so much for giving us your time today. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. Youre welcome. That was afterwards, book book tv Signature Program in which authors of the latest nonfiction books are interviewed. Watch past afterward Program Online at tv. Org. He reports at 555 feet 55 feet its the tallest stone structure in the world. Mr. Gordon, its nice to meet you and nice to see you here. I am the resident history enthusiasts, i suppose you might say, at the radio station. A couple of my colleagues are here. They are sitting in the front. They are producers for the radio show, especially when im on it. Our station, we want to thank you for doing these events. We are doing them because we are readers at the station and we know our listeners are readers as well. The readers of newspapers and books and we do pride ourselves in having an informed and educated audience. Lets get to our guest of honor. The author of Washington Monument. You have an interesting subtitle too. Let me tell you, why did you want to write a book about Washington Monument. Youre also interested in engineering. What looked to set out to write question and. Always end up being different than what you set up to write. They always take on a life of their own. Ive always been interested in novelists monuments because theyre so difficult to build and move and expensive. I always wonder why because they are good for anything. I think its basically a case of the feral ordering them and saying im so rich and powerful i can even waste this much money. Ever since then, people have been stealing them. The romans stole them and what have you. I was very interested in why the Washington Monument is obelisk shape. I guess that must be monolithic, one stone and 555foot tall, that would be super engineering, even today. Most of washington is the ceremonial holdings, most of them are neoclassical some of them are of the style of the day like the Smithsonian Castle which is a really great victorian pile. Now its a national monument. The Washington Monument doesnt fit into any of those. It can be anything less like the victorian values when it was built. They really believe that more is more. The more ornaments you have the better. Washington monument has no ornament at all. Its very on washington like. I decided i would write a book about it. You alluded to a few reasons why talk about the odd man out in the book. It struck me that i know nothing about the Washington Monument. Its probably a structure you should know a Little Something about. After reading your book, it seems like you went into the many problems it took to build the monument. Before we get to that what is the monuments origin. How did our country decide on a Washington Monument of any kind . It started out in 1783 when the revolutionary war was over but we hadnt signed the treaty of peace with britain. Congress passed a bill authorizing the direction of a monument to George Washington, huge equestrian monument with a huge huge base and everything else. That was the easy part. In 1783, the United States was as broke as any country could be. They didnt have enough money to pay interest on the debt let alone build a monument. Every few years some would suggest, we really ought to do something to have a monument to honor George Washington who was thought of the father of his country. First mps, first in first in war and first in the hearts of his countrymen. Don marshall was the third chief justice and he was a huge washington fan. He wrote a five volume history, a biography of washington. Its still in print which is a great deal to say about most books that are 200 years old. John quincy adam had his suggestion in his state of the Union Address and finally later they formed a society because they figured congress wasnt going to get around to doing anything so they started raising money to build a monument and they asked an architect name robert mills who was a native born american to be formally trained in architecture. He built a lot of buildings in washington, the Treasury Building is robert mills. They were both much larger than they were when he built them. He came up with obelisk but not quite. It was very big and it had more or less of a flat top. It was going to be surrounded by this enormous pantheon in neoclassicals dial with the statue of him driving a chariot and 30 statues of other Founding Fathers. That was going to be his final resting place. So they started raising money to do this and money was very slow coming in. Very very slow. They kept trying all kinds of different things. You pay a dollar and they give you a certificate that you could frame and all that stuff. Finally in 1848, this eight, this was 17 years after they formally started, they decide they had enough money to start and they felt once we get started more money will flow in and we can finish it. It was dedicated but they had to build the obelisk first. Then they could build the pantheon around it. You say muddling through sometimes produces superior results. As it turns out, you did get a superior monument. It was the tallest and best structure in the world when it was finished. You alluded to it a little bit before about one of the original design ideas from congress was to build the model em, almost a pyramid on the national wall. They could never convince mount vernon to send out washingtons body. At first martha washington, when she was still alive, she died in 18045 recall correctly, she agreed to have his final resting place be under his monument and somebody did suggest a pyramid 100 feet on a side which would have been the same angle as the great pyramid, it wouldve been 61 feet high. Again congress wouldnt put up any money. By the time things were getting busy, martha was dead and one of his nephews are great nephews was the owner of mount vernon at that time and he said no, general washington is staying right here. That was the end of the idea of having a muslim for him. I love how you conceptualize your book. You go back and forth between modern history age in history and back and forth. Well do that in our discussion before we start taking questions. How about we go up to the civil war in the process of building this monument. You alluded to society that was formed in 1833. At that point, they estimated it would cost a Million Dollars to do the construction. Early in the process they were able to get a decent amount of money to start. Money after that, as you commented was very difficult. They tried so many different ways to raise money. Post offices, enticements, talk a little bit little bit about those attempts that had mixed results. One idea, they just didnt get any cooperation was to put a box in every post office in the United States. Even then, thats a lot of post offices. People could just drop in pennies or whatever and the postmaster would forward it to the society. They got it into about 1000 post offices but they didnt get much money. I think people, without thinking about it subconsciously thought, the government ought to pay for this. While the post masters refused to have anything to do with it so they didnt raise much money. Again when they started they got up to about 150 feet and then a very strange thing happened. By that time they were accepting stones from states and cities and masonic lodges, what have you and Foreign Countries to put on the inside of the monument around the staircase. One of the people who sent one of these stones was pope pius the ninth. There was a group of up political party, the know nothings, had some had some formal name but all the members were told if you were asked about it to say i know nothing so there known as the know nothings. Anyway they broke into a construction lot, stole the pope stone, broke it up into pieces and checked it into the Potomac River. At least thats what we think. Nobodys ever found anything since. Today there is a new stone from the vatican that looks just like the one they originally sent. Then the know nothings, having having gone this far took over the society. They called a meeting which they had no right to do, showed showed up in the hundreds, voted themselves into office and took over the monument. Needless to say the money stopped right then and there. After a couple years they gave it back and they put up a couple courses of stone but they were very badly done because they were know nothings when it came to architects. That was it until the civil war when the United States government had other things to worry about other than finishing this monument. It was finally finished in 1863. It was actually the dome of the capital that was manufactured in the bronx. Most people dont know that. It was castiron and brought down piecebypiece on the railroad and assembled like an erector set. He thought that was a very powerful symbol that the union would continue but he couldnt care less about the Washington Monument. So i enjoyed how the monument open the windows in different chapters in american history. You mention the know nothings in politics intervening several times. Easy to idolize about washington today, but even early on in the part of the 19th century after jefferson was elected president , his party and his followers were not thrilled with washington and they werent too hot for funding a memorial to George Washington. That is true. Thomas jefferson, he was a great man and deserves his place but he is by far my least favorite founding father. He did not understand anything about economics. Washington was of federalists. He always maintained he had no party but he wanted a strong union. Jefferson was his Vice President know, he was adams Vice President , im sorry. Jefferson started sabotaging him with the press. Back to the know nothings. Back to the know nothings, not because i relate relate to that title at all but the reason they went bonkers to the pope and the vatican was there partly anti catholicism. The know nothings, they pretty much went bonkers, and it related to their anti catholic leadings they were trying to keep caplets out of the country. They were anti immigrant and anti catholic. A lot of immigrants started coming in especially the german and irish after the famine in ireland and of course they were all catholic. The know nothings didnt like that at all. They were rigidly protestant. They wanted to keep out immigration. This is a continuing story in american history. The last one in wants to be the last one in. That hasnt worked yet and i dont pick is going to work now. Anyway thats why they throughout the pope stone and what have you. My great great grandfather, by the way, ran for congress as a know a know nothing in 1840 in tennessee. He lost. Before we get to ancient egypt, one last antidote about the Washington Monument, because by the civil war really hadnt made much progress but in 1850 there was a fundraising event held at the monument and i believe rough and ready was there. Whos rough and ready . They had bad luck with president s, both of of them dying off. What happened to Zachary Taylor is he sitting on a very hot summer day for the ceremony at the partial monument . Zachary taylor was fairly old for the time of the day and very overweight. It was a hot july day in humidity was 100 . The speeches went on and on and finally he got back to the white house and he was really pooped and he ate a bullet of cherries and ice milk and the next day he was sick and then the doctors were summoned which in the mid 17th century was not a good idea. He got sicker and sicker and was the second president to die in office. So here we are the civil war and the monuments not going so well. As i mentioned before, you go back and forth in the book between ancient history and modern history. So egypt, they read the passages in the book about what the egyptians did or what the laborers did. It was cringing. It sounded like osha wouldve had a field day. Why did the egyptians want to build it, what was their purpose and how did they do it without modern tools . Well, theyre almost always ordered in pairs and they would put them on either side of the entrance of a temple. They would wrap in gold or electrum which is old and silver in order to catch the first ray of the sun. The sun was the center of the egyptian religion. So the gold had long since disappeared. The first time there was a dynasty fail, there went the gold. How they did it is a good question. The egyptians were very expert in dealing with stone. They have a lot of stone in egypt. One thing you have to remember about egypt is how it should it is. Cleopatra, the famous cleopatra she died in 30 bc. Supposedly from the bite. That was 2046 years ago. The day she died the per mids of egypt were 2500 years old. In other words shes closer to us by half a millennial that she was to the pyramids. The oblast or something, they were known in the old kingdom but there were very few of them and they were usually constructed instead of cut out of a stone. So the ones we know of today, there are 28 oblast in a world, only six of them are in egypt. There are 11 in rome, the romans really like egyptian obelisks so how do we carve them we dont know. They didnt have iron tools or pulleys. We do know that they were quarried at the Granite Quarry in the south of egypt. Fortunately, there is one that is left there because it broke in the midst of being carved out. We have a much better idea thanks to that about how they make bees. So they didnt have tools to cut granite but they did have heavier stone of even more hard stone and granite that was also compressed less when you hit it then granite. So there about the size of grapefruit and we found them in the quarry. They would take these balls about the size of a softball or grapefruit and they would just pound the grand granite and pound and pound and pound. He would talk to various people and make fun of them so it was entertainment that allowed them to keep the beat. At the an amazing talent and you their habit or you dont and 99 of the people dont have it. They make it up as they go along. Eventually it would get enough of a groove and you could get word and you would get it wet and it would swell and it would eventually crack. They would somehow get the oblast down to the nile. The nile flooded every year in those days. When the nile went down, the vote was down and they we get the oblast on it. Then the nile flood would come along and the nile would lift up. We do have a picture on a to painting that shows a huge ship that shows an oblast being pulled by ten or 12 different boats. And then they would have to drag it up somehow. They slope up to where it was going to be erected. This is the really tricky bit, how do you erect Something Like that. You only get one shot to do it right. If you blow it, they will not be happy. So what we think they did is they put the base down and then they would build a mud wall around it and fill it with sand. The have a slope and drag it up, fill it with just halfway center of mass, pull it forward and it would land on the sand. Then they would open up the mud down below in the sand would pour out in the oblast would come down and there it is. If youd like to see this, theres an early scene, anyway thats for you can see it there. Hundreds of workers would die in the process. Absolutely. There was no osha in egypt. We have a picture of a colossus and the guys standing on it and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them pulling it. Theyre pouring oil on it to help it slide along. One of these exhibitions took 8000 people altogether. In in the course of it, 800 died. So one or two more about egypt and then well wrap up about the finishing of the Washington Monument and take some questions. You mentioned before, the year peons fancied for these and it was difficult in modern time to move these intact. Where are all the obelisks today. You do an amazing job talking about how they were shipped around the world on special boats they had to be able to carry these enormously heavy objects. Talk a little more about this. The first people to take them were the romans. A gustus fell in love and started moving them to rome. Then in the 19th century, the french got egypt to give them one. They got it over to paris. It took them like six years. Then somebody had this Homer Simpson moment and thought we need a base. Nobody thought to use a base. So they carved a base and got it put in place. The british wanted one of course so it took the british for years to get their act together. The british were acting like a little old lady. Finally, they got them to pay for for 10000 pounds which was a whole lot of many at that time. Heres 10,000 pounds, pounds, you get the oblast directed on the back of the thames and you keep whats left of it. Thats your profit. He designed this building that was actually a cylinder and was manufactured in britain, taken apart, moved to the egypt and that oblast was on its side. It had fallen down. They built the ship around it. The idea was they were just going to roll it into the ocean got shut the doors. They take it through the mediterranean around the iberian nimitz law. Then they are to the west of france where its in stormy part of the ocean. They had a great storm and sailors lost their lives trying to get the sailors who were on the ship. They get them off and the next day they couldnt find it. They took off to england and they said sorry its now at the bottom of the bay. But they didnt find it, somebody else found it and took it into a Spanish Court and clammed up. It cost them 25 pounds, 25 of his prophet to get his obelisk back. After that it was pretty routine. They had a huge fight in london as to where to put it. The underground didnt want it on top of where the tracks were. Anyway ends up back there. Thank you for the history. Were going to take some q a. It takes 37 more years to finish the Washington Monument after the cornerstone was laid. What is the average person thinking about how long the project is thinking. I wonder if there were thinking much about it at all. Most people had to worry about putting food on the table and this was a big project for rich folks to worry about. The government wasnt going to pay for it until Congress Said okay, will pay for it. At that point they hired a new engineer and they had to enlarge the foundation. When you have 150 feet already up, thats a lousy time to enlarge in large foundation, but they did it. It was dangerous but they got it done. In 1880 they began to build. By this point they took down the lousy stuff but the know nothings had put up. They tried to match the stone but it didnt quite match. The stone had been up there for 29 years in this new stone came from the same quarry but it had aged yet. You can see hundred and 50 feet theres this change in color. Some say that marks the high flood point of the Potomac River flood, which would be some flood. You can see that sorry looking stump of a monument. In 1884, they made some pretty Good Progress leading up to that. Even at the very end, the man in charge of the project was cheap and he tried to negotiate a deal for the pinnacle which is made out of aluminum. Aluminum in the 19 century was expensive to get it separated from its poor. It was as expensive as gold is one point. The really quality folk got to eat with aluminum silverware and the rest had to make do with gold. By the 1880s, aluminum was down to a personal silver down to the price of silver. It takes a lot of electricity, but once you have the electricity, thats why aluminum smelled and needed lots of hydroelectric power. Now today the metal was once so valuable, is more valuable than gold and we now use it to wrap leftovers. So thomas casey, the engineer, he wasnt cheap, he was frugal. He asked if it was okay to pay for coffee for the workers so they could have hot coff the guy they memorialize. They have a magnificent statue of the lincoln memorial. Jefferson is 15 feet high. The Ulysses S Grant has others trotting around. The Washington Monument didnt even have it stuck into a niche. Nobody pays any attention to it. Its the monument that people come to see. Lets take some questions. If you could stand up and stay question. Im a little bit confused about washington possibly being buried there. Marcia washington had supposedly approved that in his will that he wanted to be buried in my urine and mount vernon. Where does that whole model he him mazza liam confusion come from . The crypt is still there. Thats where martha was going to have him. Then when they decided to move it to the mall, martha was dead and due to good oldfashioned law the family owns the bodies and he said no, hes staying staying right here. Its a very on endorsement unadorned tomb. I hope its paid for by the family and not by a grateful nation. Next question. Where did you go for your research for both the monument. Where did you do your research . Every historian i know and every scholar, they get up and sit on their hands and knees and pray to the almighty god called the internet. I cant tell you how much time the internet saves, especially with google books. If the books at a print, you can get millions of books and you can go find it and read it from it. Its just wonderful. I was hoping the publisher would send me his original research. [laughter] i am one of those history readers who inspects a bibliography and the footnote while im reading. I was wondering if you think secondary sources or Walking Around in the archives, i was wondering who wrote about this monument society. In your bibliography you found a book published in 1902 written by Frederick Harvey about the history of the society. Yes it was a very useful book. The Washington Monument society is not one of the great organizations of world history. So as far as i know this is the only book on it. Its really a pretty good book. Very straightforward. Good information and very helpful indeed. Question. Will work our way toward the front. Go ahead. Toward the end of the hamilton play, they said they help to raise money for the funds for the monument and so what was Eliza Hamiltons role . She did help raise money. She would show up at events. She lived until 1850. They were two grand old ladies, Dolly Madison also helped. It was a civic and good thing to do they thought. Id like to propose a slightly different scenario. The ground groundbreaking and dedication there was a ceremony around the monument. There was also a book called morals and dogma which was required reading until 1972. Two. In the middle of the book, he says christians, jews and moslems chose the wrong god. The right got his lucifer lucifer. He does not believe lucifer is in hell but the god of light. From the masonic standpoint, they believe in the god of light which goes back to ancient egypt. The Washington Monument, i think from their standpoint is a monument to the god of light. Heres the most important monument here in america and is probably an antichristian monument. To summarize that. Well is there any truth to what this gentleman suggested suggested about what they might be up to . I am a mason myself and we certainly do not worship lucifer or have elaborate ceremonies and all that stuff you have to memorize. In the masonic order you are brought to light. Thats when you become a mason. I have never heard lucifer mentioned at all. Washington was a mason, Benjamin Franklin was a mason and many of the early Founding Fathers were masons. Response to have all these secret ceremonies, Benjamin Franklin who was a mason himself said that the only secret of the masons is that they have no secrets. You can go online and get all those novelty books if you want. Next question. The philadelphia has a very elaborate statute to George Washington. I dont know if you know anything about that, but if you did, i, i wonder if that helped keep this one simple . The folks are trying to raise money and make it a little more elaborate new that a very elaborate one was doing done in philadelphia. Did other ornate monuments or statues of washington influence the folks here to keep theirs simple . Know. The first Washington Monument is in maryland and started in the 1820s. The local people book built it themselves. It looks sort of like an oldfashioned milk bottle made out of stone. You can go see it, it still there. Almost every city of any sizing United States have some sort of monument to washington. New york has a huge equestrian statue of him in union square. There are 31 states in the union with the county name washington. Hes the only american to have a state named after him, Washington State and there are other states named after people but theyre all after european royalty like virginia and louisiana and georgia. Hes probably the most memorialize man man in u. S. History. The gentleman in the back. The location was originally a swamp and then there was filled. Was there questions about where it should be located . What the original thinking was, was they wanted to put it where today, the Washington Monument is in line with the capital. Its about 300 yards east of the line between the white house and the jefferson memorial. It doesnt hit the crossing, as its called, and every time i see a picture of the Washington Monument from the perspective of the white house, i keep want to move it. But they didnt because they didnt think the foundation would stand up. They took it to the higher hill. Now what you are seeing is an even higher hell because they filled in the foundation and just covered it up so it looks like a natural hill, but its not. For the benefit of our cspan audience, the question was about the placement of the monument. In your book you talked about not wanting any more Leaning Towers. Yes, they definitely did not want any Leaning Tower of pisa. Okay, any questions . In the initial building of the Washington Monument, who was involved . The first question is who had influence in the process and were slaves used to erect the monument . They had nothing to do with the Washington Monument. I do not, im not aware of slave labor being used. It was pretty technical where you didnt want on Skilled Labor moving blocks of granite that weighed two and a half tons each. This was highly skilled work. I doubt they used slaves but there just wasnt any slave labor available with the sufficient skills.
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