A Pure and Sublime Monument to Washington: Race, National Identity, and the Washington National Monument in the Antebellum Era

Not completed until 1885, the Washington National Monument effort began in 1833 with the formation of the Washington National Monument Society (WNMS). From its inception, the group intended the monument to not only honor Washington and symbolize his lofty character, but to embody and disseminate national identity. The Robert Mills design the WNMS selected achieved this latter end through a variety of means, most notably the national pantheon and catacombs planned for the colonnaded base, which, though never built, received much attention in fundraising circulars and press descriptions. Though the physical design of the monument, with its classical references and attempt at sublime grandeur, bespoke a white, masculine body politic, the WNMS demonstrated some ambivalence about the racial and gendered makeup of the nation. Openly soliciting donations from men and women of all backgrounds, and inscribing their names in a ledger to be displayed in the pantheon, the society implicitly endorsed an open, egalitarian social order. After the laying of the cornerstone in 1848, the WNMS encouraged states to donate stones, hoping the coverage of such gifts would spur on additional monetary donations from the public. Quickly, blocks came in from not only states, but territories, Indian nations, foreign countries, and private organizations, often with pithy phrases engraved on their sides. The deliberations that led some of these groups to submit the stones and choose the precise wording of the engraving reveal a struggle to define national identity and expand the racial contours of that identity. Reactions to these submissions by members of the WNMS, newspaper editors, and others, most notably a group of Know Nothing supporters who broke into the monument grounds and destroyed the Vatican's block, evince a series of divisions over national identity and race and speak to the perceived power of commemoration in the antebellum era.