The Washington Monument is a tall obelisk on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., built to commemorate George Washington, a Founding Father of the United States and the nation's first president. Standing east of the Reflecting Pool and the Lincoln Memorial, the monument is made of bluestone gneiss for the foundation and of granite for the construction. The outside facing consists of three different kinds of white marble, as the building process was repeatedly interrupted. Washington's Geologic Setting., Website U.S. Geological Survey, retrieved on February 13, 2024. The monument stands tall, according to U.S. National Geodetic Survey measurements in 2013 and 2014. It is the third tallest monumental column in the world, trailing only the Juche Tower in Pyongyang, and the San Jacinto Monument in Houston, Texas. It was the world's tallest structure between 1884 and 1889, after which it was overtaken by the Eiffel Tower, in Paris.
Construction of the presidential memorial began in 1848. The construction was suspended from 1854 to 1877 due to funding challenges,US House of Representatives, 33d Congress, 2d Session, Report No. 94, as transcribed in Thayer's Gazetteer, retrieved on February 7, 2025. a struggle for control over the Washington National Monument Society, and the American Civil War. The stone structure was completed in 1884, and the internal ironwork, the knoll, and installation of memorial stones was completed in 1888. The original design was by Robert Mills from South Carolina, but construction omitted his proposed colonnade for lack of funds, and construction proceeded instead with a bare obelisk. The completed monument was dedicated on February 21, 1885, and opened to the public on October 9, 1888. In 2001, a temporary security screening facility was added to the entrance. Following the 2011 Virginia earthquake, the monument was closed for repairs until 2014, and it was closed again from 2016 to 2019.
The Washington Monument is a hollow Egyptian-style stone obelisk with a column surmounted by a pyramidion. The walls taper as they rise and are supported by six arches; the top of the pyramidion is a large, marble capstone with a small aluminum pyramid at its apex, with inscriptions on all four sides. The interior is occupied by iron stairs that spiral up the walls, with an elevator in the center. The pyramidion has eight observation windows and eight red aircraft warning lights, two per side. At the northeast corner of the foundation is a marble cornerstone, including a zinc case filled with memorabilia. Fifty U.S. flags fly on a large circle of poles centered on the monument, representing each U.S. state.
History
The monument was built to honor George Washington, the first president of the United States. At Washington's death in 1799, he was the unchallenged public icon of U.S. military and civic patriotism. He was also identified with the Federalist Party, which lost control of the national government in 1800 to the Jeffersonian Republicans, who were reluctant to celebrate the hero of the opposition party.
Proposals After the American Revolutionary War, there were many proposals to build a monument to Washington, beginning with an authorization in 1783 by the old Confederation Congress to erect an equestrian statue of the general in a future U.S. national capital city.Sheldon S. Cohen, "Monuments to Greatness: George Dance, Charles Polhill, and Benjamin West's Design for a Memorial to George Washington." Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, April 1991, Vol. 99 Issue 2, pp. 187–203. . Retrieved February 16, 2015. The initial proposal called for an equestrian statue.George Cochrane Hazelton, The national capitol: its architecture, art and history (1902) p. 288.
On December 24, 1799, ten days after Washington's death, a U.S. congressional committee recommended a different type of monument. U.S. representative John Marshall proposed that a tomb be erected within the Capitol, but a lack of funds, disagreement over what type of memorial to build, and the Washington family's reluctance to move his body from Mount Vernon prevented progress on any project. The Democratic-Republican Party (Jeffersonian Republicans) took control of Congress in 1801 and rescinded prior approvals for the memorial. Further political squabbling, along with the American Civil War, blocked the completion of the Washington Monument for much of the 19th century.Kirk Savage, Monument Wars: Washington, D.C., the National Mall, and the Transformation of the Memorial Landscape (2009) pp. 32–45
Design
Progress toward a memorial finally began in 1833, when a group of citizens formed the Washington National Monument Society. On September 23, 1835, the board of managers of the society described their expectations:
In 1836, after they had raised $28,000 in donations (), they announced a competition for the design of the memorial. Robert Mills was formally selected in 1845. Mills had previously designed a monument to George Washington in nearby Baltimore in 1815, and he had just been chosen Architect of Public Buildings for Washington. His design called for a circular colonnaded building in diameter and high, supporting a four-sided obelisk high, for a total height of . A massive cylindrical pillar in diameter would support the obelisk at the center of the building. The obelisk was to be square at the base and square at the top with a slightly peaked roof. Both the obelisk and pillar were hollow within which a railway spiraled up. The obelisk had no doorway—instead its interior was entered from the interior of the pillar upon which it was mounted. The pillar had an "arched way" at its base. The top of the portico of the building would feature Washington standing in a chariot holding the reins of six horses. Inside the colonnade would be statues of 30 prominent Revolutionary War heroes and statues of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence.Washington National Monument, April 19, 1872, U.S. Congressional Serial Set, Vol. 1528, 42d Congress, 2d Session, House Report 48. Available for free in most large United States libraries in government documents or online. Establish a connection to Readex collections before clicking on link.
Criticism of Mills's design came up already in 1847, when architect Henry Robinson Searle from Rochester presented an alternative concept, backed by three objections against Mills's project:Henry R. Searle: Washington Monument – Monograph., Gibson Brothers Washington, D.C. 1847, page 3, in: Internet Archives, retrieved February 11, 2024.
Moreover, the estimated price tag of more than $1 million () caused the society to hesitate. On April 11, 1848, the society decided, due to a lack of funds, to build only a simple plain obelisk. Mills's 1848 obelisk was to be tall, square at the base and square at the top. It had two massive doorways, each high and wide, on the east and west sides of its base. Surrounding each doorway were raised jambs, a heavy pediment, and entablature within which was carved an Egyptian-style winged sun and asps.Richard G. Carrott, The Egyptian Revival, 1978, plate 33Louis Torres, "To the immortal name and memory of George Washington": The United States Army Corps of Engineers and the Construction of the Washington Monument, (Washington, D.C.: US Government Printing Office, 1984). This original design conformed to a massive temple which was to have surrounded the base of the obelisk, but because it was never built, the architect of the second phase of construction Thomas Lincoln Casey smoothed down the projecting jambs, pediment and entablature in 1885, walled up the west entrance with marble forming an alcove, and reduced the east entrance to high.[Thomas Lincoln Casey], Letter from the Joint Commission for Completion of the Washington Monument, transmitting their annual report. December 15, 1885 Congressional Serial Set, volume 2333, 49th Congress, 1st session, Senate Doc. 6. Available for free in most large United States libraries in government documents or online. Establish a connection to Readex collections before clicking on link. A statue of Washington was eventually placed in the alcove in 1994.
Construction
The Washington Monument was originally intended to be located at the intersection of a north–south axis through the center of the White House, and a west–east axis through the U.S. Capitol on Capitol Hill. This site had been allocated as part of the 1791 L'Enfant Plan for Washington, D.C.Peter Charles L'Enfant's "Plan of the city intended for the permanent seat of the government of t(he) United States ..." in official website of the U.S. Library of Congress. Retrieved October 22, 2009. Freedom Plaza in downtown Washington, D.C., contains an inlay of the central portion of L'Enfant's plan and of its legends. The ground at the intended location proved to be too unstable to support such a heavy structure, so the monument's location was moved east-southeast. At that originally intended site there now stands a small monolith called the Jefferson Pier. Consequently, the McMillan Plan specified that the Lincoln Memorial should be "placed on the main axis of the Capitol and the Monument", about 1° south of due west of the Capitol or the monument, not due west of the Capitol or the monument.
Excavation and initial construction The cornerstone was laid with great ceremony on July 4, 1848. The ceremony began with a parade of dignitaries in carriages, marching troops, fire companies, and benevolent societies. A long oration was delivered by Robert C. Winthrop, the speaker of the House of Representatives. Subsequently, workers excavated the site, laid the cornerstone on the prepared bed, and laid the original foundation around and on top of the cornerstone. Construction of its massive walls began in 1849. Regarding modern claims of slave labor being used in construction, Washington Monument historian John Steele Gordon stated "I can't say for certain, but the stonemasonry was pretty highly skilled, so it's unlikely that slaves would've been doing it. The stones were cut by stonecutters, which is highly skilled work; and the stones were hoisted by means of steam engines, so you'd need a skilled engineer and foreman for stuff like that. Tending the steam engine, building the cast-iron staircase inside—that wasn't grunt work. ... The early quarries were in Maryland, so slave labor was undoubtedly used to quarry and haul the stone". Abraham Riesman, who quoted Gordon, states "there were plenty of people who worked as skilled laborers while enslaved in antebellum America. Indeed, there were enslaved people who worked as stonemasons. So the possibility remains that there were slaves who performed some of the necessary skilled labor for the monument." According to historian Jesse Holland, it is very likely that African American slaves were among the construction workers, given that slavery prevailed in Washington and its surrounding states at that time, and slaves were commonly used in public and private construction.