Dr. Alan Brinkley argues that history can be written in such a way that our history is fixed and unchanging, like this enormous
granite statue of our Founding Fathers in Mount Rushmore National Monument, South Dakota. Is this, in fact, what Dr. Brinkley suggests about the job of the historian?
The southeastern face of Mount Rushmore in South Dakota’s Black Hills National Forest is the site of four gigantic carved sculptures depicting the faces of U.S. Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt. Led by the sculptor Gutzon Borglum, work on the project began in 1927 and was finally completed in 1941. Over that time period, some 400 workers erected the sculpture under dangerous conditions, removing a total of 450,000 tons of rock in order to create the enormous carved heads, each of which reached a height of 60 feet (18 meters). In sculptor Gutzon Borglum’s original design, the four presidents were meant to be represented from the waist up, but insufficient funding brought the carving to a halt after completion of their faces. Known as the “Shrine of Democracy,” Mount Rushmore welcomes upwards of 2 million visitors every year, and is one of America’s most popular tourist attractions.
Penelope displays intelligence, or cleverness, when she decides to organize the contest. She knows that this is the best way to ensure she does not have to marry anyone else, as only her husband could win such a contest. Penelope's cleverness is similar to that of Odysseus. He is another character that displays this trait throughout the text.
a word (other than a pronoun) used to identify any of a class of people, places, or things ( common noun ), or to name a particular one of these ( proper noun ).
