The presidents of Mount Rushmore The “elected representatives” of America

Mount Rushmore, situated in South Dakota, was chosen as the site for a monumental sculpture representing the faces of four former American presidents: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt. These ‘elected representatives’ were deliberately chosen to embody a certain idea of America. In order to understand its various dimensions, we must revisit the history of the monument, the legal conflicts to which it gave rise, and its place in the imaginary.