An Old Timey Podcast - 18: Mount Rushmore: America’s Weirdest Monument (Part 1)

Episode Date: August 14, 2024

In this series, we’re talking about something… pretty weird! It’s the fact that, roughly 100 years ago, a handful of people thought it’d be a really good idea to carve four gigantic faces into the side of a mountain. But why did they do it? Whose idea was it?? And finally, they were so busy asking if they could… DID THEY EVEN THINK TO ASK IF THEY SHOULD???In this episode, we take a look at the man who designed Mount Rushmore, Gutzon Borglum. We look at his childhood, his early career, his weird sibling rivalry, and we wrap up with the strange, true story of how he almost made Mount Rushmore: Confederate Edition!Remember, kids, history hoes always cite their sources! For this episode, Kristin pulled from: The book, “The Carving of Mount Rushmore,” by Rex Alan Smith The documentary, “Mount Rushmore”“The Sordid History of Mount Rushmore,” by Matthew Shaer for Smithsonian Magazine“The Carving of Stone Mountain,” PBS.org “Biography: Gutzon Borglum,” PBS.org“Biography: Mary Borglum” PBS.org“The heartbreaking, controversial history of Mount Rushmore,” by Amy McKeever for National GeographicAre you enjoying An Old Timey Podcast? Then please leave us a 5-star rating and review wherever you listen to podcasts!Are you *really* enjoying An Old Timey Podcast? Well, calm down, history ho! You can get more of us on Patreon at patreon.com/oldtimeypodcast. At the $5 level, you’ll get a monthly bonus episode (with video!), access to our 90’s style chat room, plus the entire back catalog of bonus episodes from Kristin’s previous podcast, Let’s Go To Court.

Hear ye, hear ye. You are listening to an old-timey podcast. I'm Kristen Caruso. And I'm Stormin Norman Caruso. And on this episode, I'll be talking about Mount Rushmore. Ooh. Yeah. One of our nation's greatest treasures.

Really? You think so? You might change your mind. It's on all the postcards. Norm's just always sending out postcards. On all the, when people get a pamphlet in Europe that says, visit USA. You know Mount Rushmore's on the front. Norm, what year are you living in with these pamphlets and postcards?

Like the 60s. Great. Okay, good to have you. Yeah. Norm, I don't mean to put you on the spot. Uh-huh. But this week I'm telling the story. Yes.

And so what that means is, what? Kristen, that sound means you are the newest contestant on the the hit game show Sweeping the Nation. Who wants to be a patron of an old-timey podcast? Oh my God. Are you ready? I am ready. Okay.

Question number one. At the $5 level, known as a non-threatening fan, what amazing perks do patrons receive? Is it A, monthly bonus episodes of an old-timey podcast with a full video version? My goodness. B, the entire bat catalog of Let's Go to Court bonus episodes? C, access to the Discord chat, or D, all of the above.

I'm going to go with D, all of the above. Congratulations, Kristen. You've got the first question correct. You're moving on. It gets harder. I'm so excited to be here. My cat needs surgery. Is booing Kiki okay?

They're fine. I just, I like to add some extra drama. Oh, of course. Mm-hmm. Question number two. At the $7 level, known as History Ho, what perks do patrons receive? Is it A, a signed thank you card and sticker?

B, a monthly YouTube watch party. This month we are watching PSAs. Yeah. C, every benefit from the previous tier. Or D, all of the above. Um, I'm gonna go with D all of the above. She's got it, folks. What a fake out.

Geez. Now it gets real, Kristen, the final question. Your one question away from winning this show. Oh my God, my dogs need new hats. Question number three, at the ultimate tier. Pig butter investor, valued at $10. What do patrons receive?

No, the value should be way more than $10. It's valued at $50 million, but it's only $10. Uh-huh. What do patrons receive? A, early ad-free episodes of an old-timey podcast with full video versions of every episode. B, 10% off all merchants. C, every benefit from the previous tier, or D, all of the above.

I'm going to go with again, D, all of the above. She's done it! I can't believe you've fooled me again with that freaking music. Congratulations, Kristen. You've won the most popular game show in the country. Who wants to be a patron of an old-timey podcast? Yeah, we've all heard of this game show. Wow.

Yay! Yay! I probably should have mixed up the questions a little more. No, you shouldn't have. Every answer was D all of the above. Yeah, you could have like made it C all of the above. I don't know. Well, no, you couldn't have.

No, that wouldn't have sense, Kristen. Uh-huh. Anyway, thank you for playing. That was my Patreon plug. That was quite good. But was it better than Davy Donk's email? No. Well, Davy Donk's email made us all cry.

Hitler's guest appearance on the show made us all very uncomfortable. But this game show, this was just good fun, Norm. Thank you. Now I have to decide, will I spend my winnings on surgery for my cat or new hats for my dogs? It's really a tough call. It's a real tossive. We'll flip a coin. Norm, are you ready for this freaking episode?

I am. Can I tell you what I know about Mount Rushmore? Please do. The guy who created it was a nut. Now, how did you know that? Nutso bananas. I didn't know. Before I got into this research, I knew nothing about the creation of Mount Rushmore, nothing about the Netso Bananas guy who designed the whole thing. But you're telling me you knew? Yes, that's like the only thing I remember about it. It stood out. Yeah. He was kind of a character, apparently.

Kind of is putting it very, very mildly. Okay, well, I'm looking forward to hearing more. Here we go. All right. Okay, everybody. In this series, we're going to talk about something that is, when you think about it, pretty weird. It's the fact that roughly 100 years ago, a handful of people thought that it'd be a really good idea to carve four gigantic faces into the side of a mountain. And it's about how, against all logic, against all odds, And depending on how you look at it against basic ethics, they succeeded.

That small group of people picked a spot in the Black Hills of South Dakota, and over the course of 16 years, they chipped and blasted away 800 million pounds of stone, working carefully. Wait, it took them 16 years to make that? Hell yeah, baby. Good God. What do you think they just whipped that up? You think that was like AI? Do, do, do, te, do, do.

If you get a crew of like 12 guys, they could be done in, like, four years. Wow, that is such an insult. They worked carefully and skillfully, Norman, to reveal the faces of four iconic American presidents. Let's hear them. George Washington. Thomas Jefferson. Ooh. Teddy Roosevelt.

Oh. And Abraham Lincoln. Ooh, my personal favorite. Right. Calm down, Norm. I'm about to bust. Thinking about Abraham Lincoln, you're about to bust? Yeah, why not?

Please, have some goddamn respect. Respect yourself. The result is staggering. Each of their faces is 60 feet tall. Roosevelt's mustache alone is 20 feet long. That tiny mole on Abraham Lincoln's cheek? 16 inches in diameter. Whoa, that's, yeah, that's pretty big.

That's a big mole. You should get that checked out. Mount Rushmore National Memorial is called the Shrine of Democracy. But it has also been called the Shrine of Hypocracy. Oh. Not to mention a desecration and a mutilation. Still, every year, more than 2 million people travel to Mount Rushmore to see what is the largest sculpture on Earth.

It's awe-inspiring. It's remarkable. Not just for its scale, but for how well it's executed, because at the end of the day, it is incredible art. But when you think about it, it's also so deeply strange. Why on earth did we do this? Whose idea was this? And finally, we were so busy asking if we could. Did we even think to ask if we should?

I'm just guessing, no. Oh, no, there were people. Well, we'll get to it. You know, now that I think about it, Mount Rushmore is just like carved into a mountain, right? Yeah. Yeah, it's not like a traditional sculpture. No, no, traditional sculpture.

Like you have, I don't know, maybe a piece of marble and you sculpt away, but this is like. This one, they went, they went. to the source and just carved it into the source. Yeah. Yeah, that is kind of wild. It's nuts. Nats-o bananas.

And I literally had not thought about how nuts it was until I started researching this. It was just like, well, yeah, of course we've got four faces carved into mountains. I got to ask. Welcome to America. What made you decide Mount Rushmore? I'll get to it in a moment. Okay. Let me finish up this little intro.

Okay. In this series, we're diving into the creation of arguably the weirdest memorial on planet Earth, Mount Rushmore. Just a heads up, this story is wild. At times, it's downright ridiculous. And that's because, Norman, it all centers around an obnoxious, but undeniably talented artist named Gootsan Borglam. Goetzan. Goetzan was the man who would one day design Mount Rushmore. more. And like a lot of people who make the impossible possible, Goodson was a real pill.

He didn't take no for an answer. He was hardworking. He was brilliant. He was also a total egomaniac. He believed that American art was the best art in the world. And oh, what's that? Yeah, he was the best sculptor in the world. He was vain, competitive, charming, attention seeking. He was also a super racist. More on that later. So not just racist. Super racist. Wow.

He got some extra glitter on his star. He had a cape. In this episode, we'll get to know Goetan Borglum, starting with his highly unusual childhood, working our way into his early career when he would do anything, and I do mean anything, for a little recognition. especially if it meant that he could outshine his little brother. And we're going to end this episode with my latest obsession, which is the beginning of the weird, true story of how Gutsun Borglum almost made Mount Rushmore Confederate Edition.

Oh, man. Oh, man. I do love me some Confederate monuments. Oh, might want to rephrase that. I like discussing them. Okay, well, there's going to be so much to discuss. Okay, so your question from earlier was, why did I get into this? Yeah, how did you fall into this topic?

Okay, so I was trying to figure out what I wanted to cover next, and I saw this documentary on PBS that was just about Mount Rushmore. And I was like, huh. And I just started thinking like, gosh, Mount Rushmore really is weird. but it's one of those things like we went to it as kids and we're taking a trip to Wyoming next summer and it's like well yeah we got to stop at Mount Rushmore of course I am looking forward to that I've never been to Mount Rushmore

I mean that's the thing it's like it's hard to talk about because it is so awe-inspiring and so incredible but man the story of its creation is so weird That's obviously why I'm drawn to it. And it's because this guy who did it is just, I don't know the words for it. He, he. Please use some words.

This is a podcast. Oh, shit. No, he's just, he's such an odd, like deeply odd person. Well, I got to make sure I have some sounds queued up for this guy. That's why we're going to do a pretty deep dive into him because I'm just fascinated. Like, how does a person become like this? How does a person convince themselves and then the world that they are amazing? Yeah.

And how do I do that myself? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Everybody take notes. We'll all become. So we can learn lessons from this guy. Oh, God. We probably shouldn't.

But maybe there is a lesson. Well, let's get into it. The first question I have, and I'm sure you'll get into this, this guy sounds like he's German, Austrian? Danish. Danish. How does a Danish man decide he wants to do a Confederate monument? Oh, we'll get to it. Yeah.

We'll get to it. Anyway, okay. You ready? Yep. Here we go. Picture it. It's the mid-1800s. Wait, a second.

What? Currently, we're in 2024. Oh, my God. We have to time travel. We do. So hold, please. Wow. Oh my gosh.

I'm seeing so many things. Okay. Now, where are we? We're in the mid-1800s in Denmark. Ooh. This guy, Yens, who would one day become Gutson's dad, was doing his thing, being all Danish. His name was J-E-N-S. Y-E-N-S.

Yens. Like Japanese currency. Yen. Exactly. He was just a fistful of coins, this man, and yet he walked around, and that's an inspiration to us all. Yens. Got it. So he's just doing his thing, when all of a sudden he crossed paths with some Mormon missionaries from America.

What were they doing? And why were they there? Scranging up new Mormons, I think. Huh. Getting people all converted and stuff. Okay. So these Mormon missionaries were like, boy, oh boy, have we got an exciting opportunity for you? Have you ever heard of Utah?

And Yens was like, no, because Utah is not a state yet, you know. It's a territory, wasn't it? I don't know, but bottom line, they were like, dude, Kristen is like 12 seconds into this story, so just go with it. So he did. Okay, I'll stop asking questions. And the missionaries were like, here's a fun plan. We've got a fun plan. You're going to love it.

Just listen up. Step one, become Mormon. Step two, you get on a boat. Step three, you land in America. Step four, you're going to love this part. You make the super easy journey to what is now Salt Lake City, Utah. And step five, you live there forever and ever amen. Enjoy.

Yeah, that's not too bad. And Yenz was like, yeah, okay. He said yes? Yeah, so when he was like 25 years old, he got on a boat and headed for America. Just an impressionable young man. Yeah. And Norman, guess what? He met a lady on the boat.

Yeah, it was a love boat. How did you know? Oh, I had a twinkle in my eye. Yeah. Wait, is that the way that song went? Yeah. Okay, okay. I think so.

So that he's on board. He met this other hot Danish Mormon convert named Ida. Oh. Naturally, the two of them got married and they landed in America. and then they hauled ass over to the Great Salt Lake. I was hoping her name was Rose. Oh. What was Rose's maiden name?

Because remember at the end of the movie, she was like, at the end of Titanic, she was like, Rose Dawson when they asked for her name. Yeah. I do not remember. Shit. What an... Can I Google it? Sure. You know, people are just like screaming the name.

Oh, they're screaming at us right now. Rose DeWitt Buketer What? Well, I think it was just Rose D-W- This is Sir, have you ever read before? B-U-K-A-T-E-R?

Rose-D-Witt-Buketer. Bucketer? It ain't Bucceter. That's stupid. That is stupid. It's got to be Bukator. I don't know. But I do know. that it's imperative that we get to the bottom of this.

Anyway, we'll just call her Rose Dawson. Yeah, no wonder she went with Dawson. What would be the Mormon equivalent to the heart of the ocean necklace? I don't know. I don't know much about Mormonism. Hmm. Me either. Let's move on. Maybe a Pandora charm bracelet, I'm guessing. Sure. So it was a long, hard journey, but they made it, Norm.

And after about a year of living near the Great Salt Lake, Ida's unmarried 18-year-old sister, Christina, showed up from Denmark. And Yens was like, Um, Hey, ladies, did you know that I could be married to both of you? Wouldn't that be fun?

But they're sisters. Do they do that? Yeah, sister wives. Like literal sisters? Disgusting. Do they really? What do you mean, do they? They did.

I'm about to tell you. you they did. It's, I hate it. I hate it, Norm. How do you feel? Uncomfortable. Yeah, so yada, yada, yada, Ida and Christina became sister wives in the most literal sense. Literally sister wives. Okay. And, you know, Yens just gets to work banging both sisters, which is disgusting. Gets to work banging. I don't know. I didn't even have that in the script. I thought I was like classing it up a bit. I obviously wasn't. Sexy times. Ew.

But yes, thank you, Dad. And in 1867, Christina gave birth to Gutson, who would, you know, later design Mount Rushmore. And a year later, she gave birth to another boy whom they named Salon. Salon. Salon. Salon. Salon. I'm very sorry.

Yeah. Have fun with these names. Yeah. And six months later, Ida was like, look, I can give birth to. and she gave birth to a little boy named Arnold. Now there's a good name. Hey, Arnold. How did I know you would bring it around to cartoons in how long have we been recorded?

22 minutes. Oh, yeah. Yeah, in record time. Yeah, and about the first 10 minutes, we were just screwing around. I was on a very real game show. I think I won some money. Did I not? Yeah, we'll talk about the prize.

Great. You did win, though. Congratulations. Thank you. Norm, I know you think that this is the perfect scenario. You heard about the sister wives and you loved everything about it. But believe it or not, things weren't going great. They got pretty tense.

Was there a power struggle? Yeah, and also people weren't getting along, which, you know, that'll happen. Sounds like someone struggling for power. Oh, you were just looking for an opportunity to use your little soundboard. I really was. I was watching Kitchen Nightmares today. That's you every day. There's no excuse for this. True.

Also, money was tight. Yens was a wood carver by trade, and they weren't exactly living in an area where people wanted finely crafted wooden goods. People were just trying to survive out there. Yeah, I was going to say, that was like the beginnings of Salt Lake City. So, yeah, I don't think people have extra income to buy little wood carvings. Right. Yeah, he needs to be in like... What's he need to do, actually?

What do you think he needs to do? Carpenter. Should be a carpenter. Okay. I imagine a lot of people are doing that work themselves. But anyway, stay tuned. Well, actually, okay, he's a wood carver, so he's an artist. Mm-hmm.

Ooh, he could make statues to all the great Mormons in history. Norman, I just told you people weren't spending money on finely carved wood and goods. And you're saying, let's go balls out. The church could commission them and be like, we need a statue of Joseph Smith. I don't know how church the well was doing, is what I was about to say. I don't know how well this church was doing if they had to go over to Denmark to, you know, scrounge up people. Yeah, that's true. I could be.

I mean, the Mormons were chased out of Missouri. So that's a future topic. Speaking about that, Norm. Yeah. There's one other problem, and it's a problem that anyone who has watched the TLC show Sister Wives knows well. It's that being married to more than one person at the same time is illegal. So it seems that initially, Yans and Christina and Ida hadn't been super worried about the fact that their marriage was illegal. But that had mostly been because they were kind of out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by other Mormons, you know, who's going to snitch?

This is why the government shouldn't get involved in marriage. Oh, you're going to propose to Kyla now? That's right. Good God. Kyla, will you make me the luckiest man alive? You! Stop! Stop!

But then the area where they lived got a little more populated, and tourists started pouring in from the Transcontinental Railroad, and they were like, oh, my, look, sister wives! And, you know, some of them were so scandalized that they wrote to their congress. Oh. This family had a bunch of issues, interpersonal struggles, financial struggles, fear of getting into legal trouble. And then Yens and Christina and Ida did something real drastic.

What did they do? Well, in 1869, they began moving east. Somewhere along the way, they dropped the Mormonism, you know, fell out the wagon. Wagon's east. And they stopped in Omaha. where Christina and Ida's parents were now living. And Yens and Ida were like, okay, well, we're going to leave you here, Christina. Bye.

P.S., we're taking your kids with us. Bye now. Oh, so he dumped the older sister and ran off with the younger one in the kids? No, he dumped the younger one. I thought Ida was the younger one. Ida's the older one. Oh. Keep up, Norm.

See, this is why you can only have one wife. It's just a lot to keep track of. Yeah, I can't keep track of two wives. It's too much. So that's how Gutson Borglum lost contact with his biological mother. They kicked her to the curb in Omaha, Nebraska and agreed as a family to never speak of her again. Man, that's fucked up. No kidding.

And if you're wondering whether that might have done some psychological damage to this young boy, I'm sure you're wrong. Man, back then they didn't even think about that shit. I'm sure they did. I don't know. They did some wild shit back in the day. I just don't know if they considered like, man, what's the long-term impact of this on my children? See, I...

I don't know. It just seems crazy. Pretty heartless, yeah. Yeah. And she just... And the mom was just... like, okay. Well, I don't know. See, I would love more information on this. I don't know how she handled it. I just know that she remarried a couple of years later. She's just abandoned, yeah. But at least she was abandoned with her parents. Yeah, I guess. Silver lining. I guess, but then you lose your two kids. I mean, this is terrible. At any rate. Norm, you're not going to believe this, but Young Getson struggled a bit. One source said that he began running away from home when he was as young as five years old.

He became rebellious and headstrong and very self-reliant. Did you ever run away from home with a child? I threatened, but no one was scared. I packed a little bag. I got all the way to the end of my driveway. And the only one who gave a shit was Kyla. She came running out, crying. She was crying, and she's the one who alerted my parents, although, of course, I'd already alerted my parents, and they were like, goodbye.

Your sister sounded like a little mouse when she was little. She was probably like, oh, Kristen, please. Do you want to explain why you know what my sister sounds like? Oh, because I digitized your family's home movies, and, yeah. That was a real joy for you. It was wonderful. Did you ever threaten to run away from home? I did.

I told my mom, I think I'm going to run away from home. And my mom said, well, all right, well, I'll miss you, but okay. Wow. She called my bluff, and I ended up not doing anything. These fucking parents? Yeah. They think they're so smart. Jokes on them, I did run away from home when I was 19.

Take that. Yeah. And she was devastated. She tried to get your face on milk cartons, but they wouldn't take it. My mom was sad when I moved out. Well, yeah. But my mom and I are very close, so we have a special bond. You little sweetie pie.

Yeah. Gutson was becoming, you know, pretty rebellious, running away from home a lot. Meanwhile, Yens was like, well, I got to make some money. Got to. So he started sculpting. Ah. No, he did not. Oh.

Carpenter? No. What? He wanted serious money. So you know what he did? He went to a brand new shitty medical school called the Missouri Medical College and became a doctor. You know, it's one of those places where, like, you study for like 12 seconds and then you're a doctor. Yeah, it's one of those like quack schools.

Yeah. Yeah, he was surrounded by ducks. Oh, wow. Thank you. Very good. Tracking Gutson's early movement can be a little tough. records show that when he was 15 years old, he was enrolled at St. Mary's Academy in Kansas City, but ran away after a few months.

Kansas City? Yeah. Ooh. Yeah. He hung out around here and then was like, that's enough. This sucks. Another source said that when Gutson was 16, the whole family moved out to L.A., but. Really?

Yeah, but. This is a well-traveled family. Oh, no kidding. but the dad didn't like California, so he loaded up the family and headed to Nebraska, and Gutson was like, okay, I'm staying in California. And the whole family was literally like, okay, bye, we'll miss you.

And it wasn't like our freaking 90s parents who didn't really mean it. They meant it and they took off. Yeah. So Gutson was on his own, and he began studying art. Okay, pause. What do you make of all this traveling around?

Well, if the dad wasn't making money in one place, you pick up and you go somewhere else, right? I guess. Yeah, but L.A., that's quite a journey. It's a long, hard journey. What year is this? I guess the railroad was in by then. Yeah, it's the late 1800s. Okay.

You could take the railroad, so that's not too bad. But still, yeah, that's a lot of traveling for back in the day. Yeah. So Gutson was studying art, and he was really good at it. And I want to pause here. We're pausing again? Yes, we're pausing again. There's no limit on pauses, sir.

Okay. Because I wasn't able to find much information about Gutson's relationship with his dad. But I think it's so interesting. that Gutson had this very hard childhood where everyone around him was just focused on survival. He saw his dad abandon woodworking so that he could become a doctor, not because that was his passion, but because that was what was practical and profitable. But here was young Gutson studying art, impractical, unstable, often unprofitable, art. but he loved it.

And right from the beginning of his career, Gutson was already thinking about how he would succeed through art. Because yes, he wanted to be the best. He wanted to hone his craft. But he also knew that being good at what you do doesn't necessarily mean that you'll make any money at it. True. He knew that it wouldn't be enough to just like work hard.

he needed to become famous. He needed everyone to know his name. He needed to be well connected and push boundaries. And if he could do all that, then he'd live the dream. He'd make his mark on the world. He'd hone his craft and he'd become super rich. And he'd do the thing that his dad hadn't done. That's my little add on there.

I just think I think it's so interesting that he chose to study art and that he was so determined at such a young age about how he could make that practical for himself. Well, I mean, if he grew up with not a lot of money, then, yeah, of course you would want to be successful and make money and be famous, right? Right, but I think sometimes when, if that's the mindset,

especially if it's a survival mindset, wouldn't you be more inclined to go for the path that's a little more guaranteed for success? Go be a doctor, go, you know. Maybe he wasn't interested in that. Maybe he liked art. Well, he definitely did. Yeah.

I think a lot of people love art. But how many people, when it's time to pick your major in college or figure out what you want to study, don't go for art and go for a business degree that they don't really want. I guess. Wow. So you're saying because of the chaos of his childhood, he kind of wanted to thrive in that chaos.

And part of that chaos is going into this career that tends to not make a lot of money, but he's going to like do whatever he can to try and make money. No, I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying I think that he had a rough relationship with his dad, a real rough relationship with his dad. And he saw his dad give up what he wanted artistically in favor of the so-called safer path. Yeah, he became a quack. Yeah.

Yeah. And I think that Gutson was like, I'll show you. Oh, so it's like proved dad wrong? In a way. Yeah. Okay. Maybe. You know, I don't know that for sure.

I just think it's very interesting that he chose art and he was so dead set on I'm choosing art and I am choosing the path that will make me money. I know I have to be famous, so that has to be part of my career plan. Okay. By the time he was in his early 20s, Getson was already making a name for himself as an artist. His first break was in 1888 when he was 21 years old. He painted a portrait of this dude, John Charles Fremont. You heard of him? John C. Fremont.

Yes. Okay, I'm going to do like a really brief overview of him. Former presidential candidate. Oh, Normie C. Good job. What else you want to say about him? Union General and the Civil War. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Oh, very good. Very good. Okay, so, yeah. At the time, he was considered an American hero. Mm-hmm. Looking at it now. Yikes. So he was a senator.

Yeah. He'd been the Republican nominee for president in 1856. Yep. Super against slavery. He loved to see it. But also, he led three massacres against Native Americans. Yes. He was a big part of the genocide of California Indians. Yes. Yes. And in the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln gave him command of the Department of the West, which seems like too much for one person, but okay. And unsurprisingly, John did too much. He popped over to Missouri.

and was like, hello, you're under martial law now. And a heads up, if you're a Confederate douchebag, we're going to take all your property, we're going to free all the enslaved people, and also we're going to kill you. And Abraham Lincoln had to be like, whoa, hey, sit down. Yeah, he had to take him off that beat. I mean, we're with you, but, yeah, so he had to get fired for that.

Yep. So fast forward, this was the guy who Gutson was painting. Gutson finished the portrait and the next year, John died. I think he lived out, he lived like the rest of his life in California, right? Yeah. Yeah. So that makes sense Gutson would paint him. Yeah.

Got it. So the funny thing is that the portrait was good. But what really came out of this situation was the fact that John's widow was a woman named Jesse Benton, Fremont. She was super well connected and she took a liking to Gutson. Fun fact. Do you have the Fun Fact alert? Oh, yes. Gosh, get on it, Norm. Oh, that's not it.

Sorry. It's in the wrong spot. Oh, yeah. Wow, wow. Thank you, Owen Wilson. Fun fact. Her dad was Thomas Hart Benton, who had been one of the first senators from Missouri. Yep.

And he was the great uncle of the other Thomas Hart Benton who went on to become a hugely famous American artist with a big ego, but, you know, we only have time for one American artist with a big ego. So we're just going to let his ghost go away for a while. Yeah. Kansas City legend. So Jesse introduced Gutson to all the right people, and, you know, he got pretty excited. He had this goal to become a wealthy, world famous artist by the time he was 30. I have a question. Yeah. Was he painting? Yes. Okay. Yes. He's a painter at this point. Mm-hmm.

Oh, yeah. His transition into sculpting is quite the thing. Okay. So, you know, that's the goal. By the time he's 30, he's going to be world famous, super rich, on top of the world, baby. Yep. It happened for me. So that means it can happen for anyone.

World famous, huh? Super rich, huh? I was world famous, super wealthy. Oh, wow. Yep. I've fallen quite far. to doing this podcast. So it seemed like he was on the right track.

Around this time, Getson started taking art classes from a woman named Elizabeth Liza Jane's Putnam. Liza was a well-respected artist and art teacher who excelled at painting grapes. She just painted the shit out of grapes. A grape artist. Well... One of the grapes.

I hate that I like that. And in 1889, when Getson was 22, and Liza was 40, they got married. Yep. Mm, good for her. No, that's gross. That's gross. And you should know that like a proud mama bear, Liza went around telling everyone that her son husband, Getson, was an amazing artist.

No, not son husband. That's what I'm calling it. That's great. 18 years. That's too much. child husband. She was like, he's the best. My boy toy.

Oh, I don't like it, Norm. I don't like it one bit. Well, aren't you judgy? Yeah. Yeah, I am. Get your cougar paws off this little 22-year-old. She wanted some young D, and she went out and got it.

She was his teacher. Also, 40 years old, 40 years old in the late 1800s, adjusted for inflation. That's like 150. She's 150 years old. He can't even move. He's bed bound. So maybe he's the aggressor.

Anyway, so she's going around telling everyone that her husband is the best artist of all time and that he was, quote, a true universal genius. Ooh, she's this hype woman. And people were like, oh, my gosh, you know, everyone thinks their kids the best. And she's like, actually, that's my husband. That's my man. At Liza's insistence, they moved to Paris so that Gutson could continue to study art. Oh, man.

Yeah. What? Of course. All the great artists go to Paris. Sure. Yep. So they took off toward Paris, but they stopped in Nebraska to see Gutson's family. And a funny thing happened while they were there.

Do you see his mom? You know, it's funny. The documentary said that they never saw her or talked to her again, but that didn't. does seem unrealistic if they're stopping in Nebraska. So surely he saw her again. I would hope he saw her again. Yeah. Where in Nebraska?

Was Omaha? That's where they dropped her off. I don't know if she moved around a little bit. They stopped at that cracker barrel and they're like, we all have to use the bathroom. We'll be right back. We swear we will buy some green beans. We'll just be in the gift shop. Yeah.

Yeah. I need one of these huge beanie babies. Man, I used to love the cracker barrel gift shop. Who didn't? That's the best gift shop. I was always obsessed with the rock candy. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I was mesmerized.

The root beer flavor? Get out of here. I know you're not as into the root beer flavor as I am, and that's one of your many flaws as a person. What are you talking about? Where is that coming from? Who says I don't like root beer flavor? You're just not as into it as I am.

Okay. All right. I'm sorry to tell you. Tell me I'm wrong, Norm. You're looking at rock candy, which flavor are you picking? The blue one. I want the blue one. That is a good one.

I will admit that. I wanted to hate on it, but that is a really good one. It's called blue raspberry, but I just called it the blue flavor. That's what everyone should call it, because I've never seen a raspberry looking like that. Nope. So they stopped in Nebraska, and a funny thing happened while they were there. Gutson noticed that his little bro salon had been, you know, dappling and painting. How sweet.

Oh, no, no. He's jealous. He's jealous. No. At this time, he is not because his little brother is just trying painting just like his big bro. Oh, sweet. How sweet. Okay.

And Getson was like, wow, hey, you're doing a great job. Keep it up. And then he and Liza, you know, went off to Paris. Yeah. And Norm, you know, sometimes all it takes is a little encouragement. That was certainly the case for. Salon. So he like blew up after that?

Yeah, his brother had been nice about his art. So Salon wondered if maybe he could also become an artist. So he went to school for it. He made a name for himself. And he very quickly became a celebrated sculptor. Damn. Good for him. You're right.

All it does take is a little encouragement. Mm-hmm. In fact, he quickly became. became more famous and more well respected than his older brother. Well, he's over and pairs painting grapes, I guess. Sure, he's doing all kinds of things. With his... With his what?

With his cougar wife. Oh, wow, that's very judgy of you, Norm. We don't judge on this podcast. No, I mean, at this time, she'd be considered a coug, right? Older woman? No. She'd be considered 150 years. The funny thing was, Salon didn't seem to share Gutson's gigantic ego or even his insatiable need for recognition.

He just, you know, worked hard and, you know, maybe there was some luck to it, too. He was obviously very talented. But, yeah, he got more famous than Getson, like right off the bat. Okay. Meanwhile, Getson began working in Paris. He painted a ton of landscapes, a bunch of portraits, were grapes involved. We don't know. Maybe that was Liza's thing.

And, you know, by many standards, he was successful. It'd be funny if he painted some grapes and Gutson was like, these are the worst grapes I've ever seen. Yeah. He, like, tried to pick it apart. You call these grapes? He's looked like raisins. You fool.

Raisins are grapes, though, aren't they? Yeah, that was kind of the joke. Oh, I see. Oh, my. I have to use the bathroom. room. Okay. I apologize. That's all right. Shrimp BLT is running right through. Oh, my God. Folks, how does a shrimp BLT run right through you? Think on that for a minute.

Welcome back. I ask the people to sit and ponder about how a shrimp BLT could run right through you. Thank you. So, Gutson was doing pretty well. well, but it wasn't enough. He had been so confident that he would become a world famous artist by the time he was 30. But Norm, he turned 30 in 1897, and unlike yourself, he wasn't famous. He wasn't rich. And his marriage sucked.

So he was not 30, flirty, and thriving? He was not. Damn. And he desperately wanted to. to be all three of those things. So his wife was now 48. Probably just. No, he was not.

She wasn't. Oh, yeah, she was. Yeah. I'm 18 years older, right? I'm amazing at math. Yes. Yes. So she's basically a corpse at this point.

She's got one foot in the grave. Yeah. She's picking out her casket. Uh-huh. Yeah. She's only eating soup, not because soup is delicious, but because she doesn't have the chompers anymore. Absolutely. Okay.

Mm-hmm. So, yeah, he's feeling a little down in the dumps, and then all of a sudden, guess what? Salon shows up in Paris. Oh, man, just to rub it in his face, huh? No, no, just, I mean, Salon was truly there to, like, do exactly what his rub. brother was doing like learning fun yeah it'd be hilarious if he was like giving a lecture or teaching a class and gutsin was one of his students oh hey little bro well um you're getting close to what's happening here he shows up he's fresh on the scene and guess what the folks in europe really really

loved his sculptures oh my gosh salon they're like wow you're amazing you're so talented So cool. You're unlike any artist. And Gutson just had to sit there and be like, I'm so happy for you. It's so great that you took the thing that was mine, and now you're even better than me at it. Yeah, but he's a painter. I'm not mad. I'm happy with how my life is going.

I'm not famous, and I have an old wife, and that's how I like it. I have an old wife. I'm just guessing that that's what he said. Did Salon have some young haughty? You know, I actually don't know, but let's assume. Let's assume he had a young hot wife. He also had a dog who was just always a puppy all the time. Permanent puppy.

And he was just always dressed great. You know what this makes me think of? There's everyone, there's this couple in our neighborhood. Okay. Norman I have not actually spoken to them. but their house their house is better than ours they're better looking than us

I can't say too much because then it'll give it away they're better looking they're always dressed great I remember especially when we had peanut you know peanut was our old diabetic good dog and they had like this puppy and it was just like man they're just they're just living life good for them good for them.

It's the couple. Oh, yeah. They are better than us in every way. I mean, unquestionably. Yeah, much hotter. And it just... Much wealthier.

Grates on the nerves to see them. But you can't be like, I hate you because you're so hot. You have to be like, hi. Turns out, Norm, all of Europe wasn't big enough for the two brothers. So Gutson hopped on a... a boat headed for the U.S. of A and he left Liza behind. What? Abandoned? No, no, no, they're still married.

He still super loves his really old wife. But, you know, he is leaving. It's like, look, you continue to teach the art of grape painting over here, and I will go to the U.S. and continue my career. Actually, I think this is going to be a good thing for our marriage. Yeah. Yeah. And if you need anything, press this button and the nurse will come in.

Norm, you know what they say? Like father like son? I was going to say World War I makes the heart grow fonder. That's a well-known phrase that we talked about in my bonus episode. Available about the $5 level on our Patreon. Amazing plug. Well, Getson was on that boat headed for America. He met a super hot young woman.

Rose? No, unfortunately. Her name was Mary. Mary Montgomery. Mary was amazing. She was seven years younger than him. Okay. A graduate of Wellesley College.

And she just earned her doctorate from the University of Berlin. Oh, so very well educated. Oh, she was cool, smart, man. She was hot shit. And even though Gutson was married, it did turn into a bit of a love boat situation. Did he slip that ring off? Was he like, boop? Did he toss it into the ocean?

You are determined to make this a Titanic story. I'm trying real hard. No, I think he was honest. ish. He wasn't honest with Liza. You know, and his letter's back to Paris. He's just like, oh, hey, hey, honey, I set up a studio in New York.

Miss you. I'm all alone. I've not met anybody. Yep. I'm not banging anyone as I write this letter. Nope. Nope, I'm not pounding ass. Pounded ass!

My goodness. Gutson. All up in the gutsins. Oh, that was good. And so then, You know, fast forward just a little bit, and he's like, oh, no, I've got typhoid fever. Oh, that's not good. And Liza read that letter, and, you know, she was like, oh, my gosh, so like a good wife, you know, she hops on the next boat to New York City.

I'll see you in two months. I don't know how long the boats take. Who knows? I mean, a couple weeks, probably. I would imagine. Yeah. Nothing bad can happen when you speed up a bit just to show how fast you are, right? No, no.

It's actually really cool to speed the boat up. And say, Iceberg, Schmeisberg. Here we go. Hey, watch me do this. Is it too soon to laugh about this stuff? Well, it's been 112 years. Uh-huh. I think we're good.

I think we're okay. You look guilty as you say that. Well, come on, it's a little funny if that's how the Titanic sank. if the captain was like, watch me do this, and he... He pounds of course light and throttles the ship. So, Liza, you know, hops on a boat, headed to New York City, ready to nurse her husband back to health. And when she showed up, what did she see? Hot, young, sexy, smart, Mary Montgomery playing sexy nurse to her husband.

Oh, man. Yeah, so she walked in was like, honey, I'm home. Mm-hmm. And Mary was like, oh, my gosh, I get to meet your mom. Oh, my God. I've been wanting to meet you. I'm in love with your son. That didn't really happen.

But I'm sure it was tense because Liza was like, wow, and she just took off. Ooh. She didn't technically divorce Gutson until several years later, but, you know, for now, she's gone. Gone, gone, gone. She had brought him a brand new painting of grapes. I did this for you in Paris. Uh-huh. I thought nothing of you and grapes the whole time.

She tossed it into the fireplace. Oh. So now Gutson and Mary were getting closer and making sexy glances at each other. Naturally. And it was around this time that Gutson made a major change as an artist. He decided to sculpt. Yep. Yep, because of his little brother.

Yeah, so Norm, multiple historians. believe that the reason Gutson switched from painting to sculpting was because he was jealous of his brother and wanted to beat Salon at his own game. Yes. And if that is true, all I can do is tip my freaking hat because Gutson spiked toward his younger brother resulted in some incredible works of art. Were you competitive with your siblings? Oh, yeah, we're all very competitive. Yeah. The whole Caruso clan.

Okay. Would you do something like this? Or can you think of anything like this? You know I thrive in spite. You do, you're, yeah, you use spite as an incredible motivator. Yeah. Although, I don't know if I would be spiteful of a sibling. That seems a little too far.

I don't know that it does. I can see you being like, I'll show you. Yeah. I guess if my brother was like, Norman, I'm starting a history comedy podcast. That would be so funny. And oh, look, it's number one in the charts. You would lose your shit. You'd be like, Ryan is going down.

You would wake up and you'd see me smoking in the living room and I don't smoke. Seriously, if, yeah. I'd be furiously typing away at something. You'd be like, what's he going to cover next? I'm going to cover it. And I'm going to do it even better. Yep. I'm going to spread a rumor that my brother fucked a couch.

Surprisingly, surprisingly an effective rumor spread about someone. It seems to be effective these days. For the next 10 years, running on spite, guts and churned out sculpture after sculpture, after sculpture. And he got better and better and better. Did he always operate in the most ethical way? Well, not really. What do you mean? His brother was still the more famous sculptor, and sometimes people would reach out to Gutson, thinking they were reaching out to the more famous brother.

Oh, did he? And he wouldn't correct him. Did he make his email? Borglum sculptor? Borglum.com. At a.oelm.com. The Borglum sculptor at Hotmail. Uh-huh.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so he'd get contracts for work that had originally been. been intended for his brother. Yeah, that is shitty. Oh, yeah, it's shitty. Meanwhile, Salon seems to be just a little sweetie pie. He helped Gutson get accepted into the National Sculpture Society.

What a good little bro. Yeah, really nice. It was a very exclusive club. It was quite an honor. But Gutson joined the club and started arguing with people. Oh, God. Maybe he had a bit of a chip on his shoulder about how he got in.

Specifically, he began arguing with a guy named John Quincy Adams Ward. That's a name. Uh-huh. I don't think you need to know a whole lot about American history to know that that's a guy who you probably shouldn't mess with. He's probably pretty fancy, well-connected, right? Yeah, so is that John Quincy Adams's son, grandson, niece, nephew, cousin? Probably not a niece, but, you know, I would say a close descendant.

So after being a member of this exclusive club for just a couple weeks, the National Sculpture Society was like, dude, you're out of here. You're ridiculous. You are nutso bananas. You are out of the club. And Gutson busted out the classic, You Can't Fire Me, I Quit. Oh, love that. And then he did something that would be. become one of his trademarks.

He took the fight to the media. Oh, God. He told the press that the National Sculpture Society might as well be called the National Biscuit Company. What? The Biscuit Company. Yeah. Nabisco?

They might as well be the National Biscuit Company, so suck on that. Wait, is that what Nabisco stands for? National Biscuit Company? Maybe. My mind has just been blown. Well, Google it. We don't want to be wrong. Holy fucking shit.

I'm looking this up. Goes all the way to the top! Put on your tinfoil hat, Norm. We are through the looking glass here, people. Yes, Nabisco is abbreviated from the earlier name, National Biscuit Company. Was he referring? It was founded in 1898. Yeah.

Incredible. Could have been. Yeah, if you have the video version of this podcast, you will see that my very functional tinfoil hat with a carrying handle is now on display. People love the carrying handle. Yes. They don't think it looks like a dong at all. The reviews are in. No, if you're a sick pervert, you think it's a dong.

My apologies. Yeah. He also told the media that the latest. exhibit by the National Sculpture Society had been a disgrace. Who is he talking to in the media? Where is he going? All the papers. So he just shows up and he's like, I've got a story for you about the sculpting society. Yeah, and you know what? Reporters love that shit. Okay.

You gave me my story for the day. Thank you, sir. Now I don't have to go look for one. Yep, and you're extra bitchy, so these quotes are amazing. We love you. Kiss kiss. this fight was the talk of the town who was in all the papers and Gutson just sat there like wow all I had to do was talk shit and be a sassy little mess of a boy

and I got my name in all the newspapers he realized that this could be part of the formula for becoming famous he could do his art sure yeah whatever but he could also have big nasty public fights brilliant oh my god this is I mean, this is still going on today.

Yeah. People do this shit all the time. It is like rampant on YouTube. This is how you get big on YouTube. Yeah. You talk shit on other creators. You talk shit on somebody. Yeah.

Yeah. If you really want those views, if you really want that money. Yep. This is how we become huge as a podcast. Yeah. You just pick a random podcast and say that they should be called the national, just Nabisco. Let's shorten it. They should be Nabisco.

Who are we going to, who are we going after? We got to think of, we got to think big. Yeah. The biggest podcast on the planet. I mean, I've already talked shit about Joe Rogan. Let's go for NPR. NPR. Let's go after Conan O'Brien.

Fresh air. Yeah. Nabisco. Conan needs a friend. His podcast should be called Conan needs Nabisco. His latest episode, a disgrace. There we go. Okay, now we're famous.

No. Just kidding, Conan. We actually love Conan. He's a friend. We listen to it all the time. Wow. You're not doing this correctly. That's not how this works.

I'm too non-threatening. I was so uncomfortable with the drama shit on YouTube. Well, yeah. You never participate in drama. No. No. And even when like people like came after me for some wacko reason, I never responded because I was just like, this is weird. Yeah.

Yeah. You're a classy guy. No, I'm just scared and non-threatening. You run on spite and crystal light and you never have a public fight. That kind of rhymed. That was beautiful. Ooh, very nice. I had a cross-stitch that.

Very good. I want that on a poster. Yep. Over the course of his life, Gutson got into major public fights with everyone. From the mayor of New York to President Woodrow Wilson. Jesus. No one was safe. Well, he can fight with Woodrow Wilson.

kind of a shithead. Sure. Yeah. I approve that fight. Drag his ass, guts in. And like you've kind of already said, the strategy was effective. He got his name out there. And in the meantime, his art spoke for itself.

He showed some pieces at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair and got a gold medal. He got a contract to design more than a hundred sculptures for the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York. He did a statue of John William McKay for Reno, Nevada. In 1907, he won a contract to create a statue of General Philip Sheridan in Washington, D.C., and he beat out that John Quincy Adams Ward guy for the job, and when they unveiled the statue, did he shout, suck on that? Maybe. That would have been quite a scene.

But maybe he didn't have time, Norm. he was busy doing all the things. He boxed. He wrestled. He practiced fencing. He rode horses. Whoa, what? Did he have untreated ADHD?

Definitely not. He was an architecture enthusiast and a big fan of airplanes, an expert really when you talk to him. But mostly he was a big fan of himself and of becoming friends with people who were either rich or famous, but preferably both. Boxer and wrestling. wrestler and fencer and airplane enthusiast. I did not include this ridiculous part where he started to get really suspicious of how airplanes were being run in the United States. So he went to the president and he was like, I will look into this. And the president was kind of annoyed with him and was like, yeah, sure, buddy.

So he financed this investigation himself. It was ridiculous. Like nobody asked for it. But he did actually reveal some good stuff. What? That like planes aren't. or witchcraft? No, I mean, it was, don't worry that.

I didn't write it down. It's a whole thing. Anyhow, he did a lot of shit, is what I'm trying to tell you. He definitely did. Yeah. So he's just working his ass off, trying to become a famous celebrated artist. And meanwhile, his little brother Salon just did art and hung out with his family and didn't get into public fights and didn't hung up. and didn't hungrily pursue famous friends.

And yet, by 1911, Norm? Yeah. Salon was still the more famous artist. What a loser. For years, the brothers lived with this tension between them, professionally and personally. But the thing that finally broke them was a little contest held by the state of Nebraska.

Turns out the state wanted a statue of Abraham Lincoln to put in their state capital. Oh, excellent. So Gutson and Salon both applied for the job. They knew they were competing with one another, and they were both very serious about winning the job. But one day, you know, Gutson reached out to Salon, and he's like, hey, let's just talk this over.

He invited Salon over to the studio, and he's like, hey, you know, come on, come on, let's bury the hatchet. And then he bashed him over the head with a hatchet. Let's bury this hatchet into the back of your head so that I get to sculpt Abraham Lincoln. Oh no, Salon is dead, so I guess you have to pick me. Yeah, he's like, hey, how about this? How about this?

Why don't you withdraw your application and let me have the contract? Why? Yeah, Salon was like, what? Why would I do that? And Gutson was like, well, yeah, you know, it makes sense for me to get the job because you've never made a sculpture of Abraham Lincoln. And so you don't know the soul of that great man. Oh, boy. And that is a quote.

You don't know the soul of that great man. Interesting. And this guy would later want to create Confederate monuments. Yeah, but he also did Mount Rushmore, so. Uh-huh. Salon could not believe that his brother was talking this way to him. He was so out of line. And Salon's like, no, I'm not withdrawing my application.

Get out of here. And in the end, neither of them actually got that contract. Who got it? Some other dude, I don't know. Little Davey Dunks. He's an up-and-comer around these parts. But the funny thing was that this whole time, Gutson had been secretly worked on a marble bust of Abraham Lincoln.

He'd intended to use it probably to just show off to the committee. Like he assumed he would win. And then boom, he'd just really impress them with like, oh, here's what I've already got. Yeah, here's what I've been working on. This is the wonderful work I do all the time. I just made this in my spare time. I was bored between boxing and fencing and looking into airplane investigations. Yeah.

There's something they're not telling us about these airplanes. How do they get off the ground? No one knows. But yeah, when he got rejected by the state of Nebraska, he just started touting that thing all over the place. He put it in a store in Fifth Avenue, and people were like, wow, that's pretty good. Oh, look at that cool statue.

He talked Teddy Roosevelt into displaying it in the White House. And yet, people, again, were like, that's really good. When Abraham Lincoln's son, Robert, saw the bust, he said that it was, quote, just like seeing father again. Oh, well, that's a pretty good. pretty good endorsement. Yeah.

And Norman, to this day, Gutson Borglum's bust of Abraham Lincoln, which he created to show off to the state of Nebraska and to edge his little brother out of a competition, now sits in the rotunda of the Capitol. To this day. Really? Bronze casts of it are currently in the White House

and in Lincoln's Tomb in Springfield, Illinois. Damn, they even put it in Lincoln's tomb? Yes. Holy moly. Well, good for Gutson. Right? Yeah, okay. It's pretty incredible.

Yeah. Good job. This sculpture appears to have been the thing that finally pushed Gutson Borglum into where he wanted to be. He was celebrated. He was recognized. Liza divorced him, which meant that, on May 19th, 1909, he and Mary were finally able to get married.

Marry that girl. Marrier anyway. Mary that girl. Her name is also Mary. And that turned out to be really good for Gutson. Mary supported him. She kept him organized. She kept him on task. And boy, did that pay off. They moved into a 500-acre estate outside of Stanford, Connecticut. Yep. Ooh. And in 1912, they...

That's some money right there. Oh, yeah, they were doing quite well. Yeah. And in 1912, they had a son whom they named Lincoln. Oh. Mm-hmm. Years passed. And Gutson continued to make high-powered friends and continued to make great art, but...

He got everything he wanted. He's a semi-famous artist. He's got a 500-acre estate in Connecticut. He's got a young, highly educated wife. He's got a son. What more could he want? Well, Norm, I think you said it. How did you describe him?

Semi-famous. Semi-famous. Almost famous. Yeah, it's not enough. He wanted to do something bigger, something better. He set his eyes on public monuments, and he was disgusted by what he saw. Oh, yeah. What was he bothered by?

He thought they were terrible, and they should all be dynamited. Oh, man. Yeah. This guy was a professional at talking shit. Did he name any specific monuments where he was like, this sucks. I, okay, now if I could remember, I didn't write this part down. I think he really hated the Lincoln Memorial.

Really? I think so. Probably just because he was jealous that he didn't do it. Yeah, Lincoln Memorial is a good monument. Not according to Gutson. You just seem like a biscuit-eaten freak. You, the bisco-eaten ass. Get out of here.

What America needed was something big. He came to see that it wasn't just beauty that drew people in. It was size, too. Gutson believed that volume could shock the soul center. Yeah, bigger is better. Shear size could stir up emotions. What would he do next with his career? He didn't know for sure, but he knew it wouldn't be some dinky little thing.

And then, just as Gutson was at this turning point, point in his career. A little organization called the United Daughters of the Confederacy came a knocking. Whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, who, who, who, oh, you a big fan? Oh, hello. You a big fan? Oh, I love the United Daughters of the Confederacy. A bunch of cutie pies. Oh, yeah. In case you aren't familiar, the United Daughters of the Confederacy was a white supremacist organization that was founded in 1894 under the guise of honoring Confederate soldiers. Hmm. That's not how I remember it.

How do you remember it, Norman? Oh, first of all, under the guys. No, no Kristen. Oh, boy. They were honoring Confederate soldiers. Sure. Now that's sarcasm. Ooh, I almost dropped my crystal light. Uh-huh, because of the look I was giving you.

Yeah. The organization was super tight with the KKK and did an upsettingly effective job at putting forth the lost cause narrative. They created monuments to the Confederacy. They wrote inaccurate history textbooks, which were subsequently taught in schools. And they got accurate history textbooks banned from schools. They put up that faithful slave monument in Harper's Ferry. Oh, I forgot about them.

Gosh, they would be quite the series to do. A series on the United Daughters of the Confederacy. Oh, gross. I don't have the strength. Oh, that would be a lot of fun. Oh, you know what I'm realizing? What? I could probably join the organization. Yeah?

Yeah, unfortunately. I'm a white lady from Missouri, Norman. I'm sure if we go back far enough. You're in. Yeah, yikes. Their work, particularly during the Jim Crow era, continues to affect us to this day. In fact, I've devised a little time.

test for the listeners. If someone tells you that the Civil War was about slavery and your knee-jerk reaction is to say, no, no, no, no, the Civil War wasn't about slavery, it was about states' rights. Then I've got news for you. You may be entitled to compensation because at some point in your life someone spouted off some bullshit from the United Cairns of the Confederacy. Ooh, Kristen, you're going off this episode. Do you disagree?

No. Just saying you're roasting them. It's just upsetting to me. I also think it's funny, it speaks to the power of women, too. I think that's why it kind of fires me up, because there were so many things that women couldn't do at this time. Couldn't vote? Sure.

couldn't, you know, couldn't do a ton of stuff. But they thought hard about what they could do. They could put up monuments that are still around today, and who knows how long they'll be around. They could have a huge impact on what is being taught in schools, on what is taught to the future teachers of America. they could help name roads. They could do all kinds of stuff.

And they did. And they did. I mean, it just goes to show you, you don't have to have a ton of power to get a lot of really terrible stuff done. And that is an inspirational quote. Yeah. Put that on a poster.

You don't have to have a ton of power to get stuff done. We're coming up with all sorts of new T-shirt ideas for the old-timey podcast merch store, which if you're on the $10-dollar tier, you get 10% off all merch. But Norm, we don't have any old-timey podcast merch yet. Well, we're coming up with it right now, aren't we? That's right. We're inventing it. Yeah. Maybe I could sell replica tinfoil hats on the store. I will make you, I'll send you the blueprints to make this.

The blueprints. Yeah, with sheets of tinfoil and you can make your own. What would you charge for something like that, Norm? Ten bucks. That seems fair, right? No, not at all. Well, how much would you charge? I don't think you should charge anything for that.

In fact, I think you should pay anyone who had to look at that. Anyway, in 1915, when Gutson was looking for his next big project, the United Daughters of the Confederacy were looking for their next big monument. Of course. So they approached him with a request to put a... sculpture on top of Stone Mountain outside Atlanta. They really wanted a bust of Robert E. Lee to sit high up on Stone Mountain. Ah, beautiful. By the way, do you not have the about to bust Hank Hill thing?

I do. Wow. So many missed opportunities with the Lincoln bust. Oh, shit, you're right. I'm about to bust. Too late. You know it's just a little too late. Great.

No, I'm going to be thinking about all the mistakes I've made in this. episode. I thought that maybe Gutson could carve up a big written account of the Civil War. Carve a written account of the Civil War? Yeah, just so people are real clear on what happened. So there's like a book carved into the mountain? Hey, it's just brainstorming, okay? The Civil War would, that'd be a long-ass book.

Well, not if you're making shit up. That's true. The slaves really enjoyed being slaved. We were all really nice to them. And it's just a shame it had to end. And Reconstruction was hard on us, okay? And that was really mean. The War of Northern Aggression.

Yeah. Yeah. It's a pretty short tablet. Gutson hated the idea. He said, that'd be like putting a postage stamp on a barn door. The mountain's so big. The bust would be so small. I'm about to bust.

But he was feeling inspired, Norm. So he told the ladies that he'd think it over. The guy who owned Stone Mountain was a KKK member named Sam Venable, and he very much wanted to see a Confederate memorial on his mountain. So Gutson stayed at Sam's house for like three days, just staring at Stone Mountain. Can you imagine owning a mountain? No. Man, that'd be cool as hell.

Can you imagine being in the KKK? No, I can't actually. I'm trying to think about owning a mountain. I'm envisioning a little mountain retreat. I'm not thinking about what I could do with our white sheets. Yeah. Imagine owning a mountain and people are hiking along the mountain and you can just walk with them and talk to them the whole afternoon and say,

yep, I own this mountain and, yep, I live up here up here along the trail. Do you know yourself? This is my imagination. Okay. Well, I'm going to bud in it. Where I'm like an outgoing fun person. I was going to say, if you owned a mountain and you saw people walking on your mountain, you'd be like, oh, my God. Don't they know I'm a private mountain?

But I wouldn't actually say anything. I would peek out the window like this. And you'd complain to me. And the people walking by would be like, do you see that guy? looking at us. You see that creepy guy looking at us? From that little cab? Is he wearing a tinfoil hat?

Looks like there's a penis on it. So he's just studying Stone Mountain. He watched the light play off of it at different times a day. And wow. Then all of a sudden it came to him. An idea that was unlike anything that had ever been done before. Let's hear it. He wanted to create the biggest.

sculpture known to man. He's thinking big. He settled on a design that if completed, would, without question, become the eighth wonder of the world. He was pretty sure. How old is Gutsin at this point? Oh, gosh. I want to say 40s-ish.

He was born in 1867. It's 1915. Do that math. Somebody, help me. He was older than 60s, he was. 40. He was 1867, 1907 is 40 years old. So it's 1915, so he's 48. There we go. The Confederate monument wouldn't be some puny little bust of Robert E. Lee. Ugh, disgusting. Hell no. It would be 1500 feet long, 400 feet high. Jesus. Pitchering, Norm! That is huge. Near the top of the mountain,

he'd have artillery charging ahead, horses galloping, guns flopping. Guns flopping? Just below that, Confederate soldiers marching in perfect unison. Flaccid weapons? On the other side, in would come the cavalry! So this is like a mural he wants to carve it in the mountain. When viewed at a distance, it would look as though the Confederate forces were all coming together about, 200 feet in the air at the highest point of the cliff.

And there, at that highest point, oh my, what would be there? A massive Mount Rushmore-style carving of the terrorists who threatened to tear the United States apart. Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, Stonewall Jackson, and also, you know, maybe some other guys, TBD. Oh, so he had those three in mind. Sure. Okay. Hey, it's just, you know, brainstorming. Yeah.

So Gutson shared this idea with KKK Sam, and Sam was like, huh, oh, okay. And that was all Gutson needed to hear. It was perfect. Sam was willing to donate Stone Mountain to the lost cause. Very worthy cause. Oh, yeah, you made a little flub there. Whoops. Whoops a daisy.

Now? All Gutson had to do was convinced the United Daughters of the Confederacy. So he went to the head bitch in charge. She was an 88-year-old widow named Helen Plain, and she was the organization's national president. So he went to Helen and a bunch of other daughters of the Confederacy, and he shared his vision with them. Needless to say, the ladies were cream in their petticoats. They were stoked. Ooh.

But there was just one problem. What's wrong? Well, it was a problem that, interestingly, Gutson hadn't really talked about yet. Money? Yeah. You got to pay me? Wouldn't creating the biggest sculpture on earth be incredibly expensive? See, the United Daughters of the Confederacy had recently learned that when people do work, you have to pay them money.

So they were pretty concerned about how they'd get the money to honor the people who had fought to defend slavery. but Gutson wasn't worried about money. No, really? I don't believe that. He was like, this memorial is going to be amazing. It's going to honor everyone in the South. So naturally, everybody in the South is going to want to donate to this thing. Everybody, Norm, like literally, everybody.

Just $1 from every citizen of the South, and we can make this memorial. But also, Northerners, too. Northerners too are also going to want to donate to this thing. I'm sure a few northerners would. Well, the United Daughters of the Confederacy were like, really? Northerners too? So they were a little confused. And Gutson was like, oh, yeah, for sure.

Hey, not many. Northerners are, they're definitely going to do it. Don't worry about it, Norm. Getson's got it covered. Okay? Okay. So the project was on. Yay!

All right. Woo! Yes. That November, the KKK, gathered on top of Stone Mountain to celebrate the rebirth of their organization. They were emboldened, just thrilled. Soon, Stone Mountain would be home to the biggest, best, most unique public monument in the world. And it would honor the Confederacy. There were some questions that had been left unethical.

unanswered. Such as. Questions like, questions like logistically, how were they going to sculpt an entire mountain? And really, really, with what money? Well, and he's got to get a crew too, right? Sure.

Yeah, this isn't a one-person job. Yeah, who's going to help him do this? Uh-huh. Also, on what time frame? Like, how quickly is this going to come together? That's why I asked how old he was, because I was like, are you going to finish this in time? Well, you thought Mount Rushmore would have been done in like, what, four weeks?

I said four years, a crew of 12 guys. And should they have maybe drawn up a contract? Ooh. For Guts and Borlum, the answers to those questions were unimportant. In his mind, Stone Mountain was going to be the pinnacle of his career. This was going to be what made him famous, once in a moment. for all. This was what would put him in the history books. And this was what was going to be his crowning achievement. In next week's episode, we're ending it there. The Confederate Monument

comes together and then falls disastrously apart. I can't wait. It's so ridiculous. I am familiar with Stone Mountain. Are you? Yeah. I was not until I started doing this. Yeah. It is ridiculous what happens. I guess I forgot that that was the same guy. Yeah. Yeah. Very interesting. Okay.

What did you think, Norm? Did you learn something? Oh, yeah. All right. Yeah, about guts and. Oh, man. What a hoot. I'm so excited for next week's episode.

Really? The Stone Mountain shit is ridiculous. Yeah. It's ridiculous. think he got into public fights with the National Biscuit Company or whatever? No, no. Nabisco is still reeling from his attacks a hundred years ago. Their self-esteem remains in the gutter. Yeah. Oh, thank God they have Oreos to keep them afloat. Absolutely. It's Nabisco that makes Oreos, right? I think so. Let's confirm that. We must confirm. Yes, it is Nabisco.

Excellent. I could go for some Oreos right now. I mean, Yeah, that sounds delicious. Does sound good. Damn. That shrimp BLT ran through me. Everyone, I feel like we should explain that was a salad. Yes, it was the shrimp BLT salad. I should have added that.

Because yeah, shrimp BLT doesn't. Sounds really weird. Sounds odd, yeah. Okay. Kristen, I'm not going to ask you how many parts this series will be. We're just going to go with the flow, baby. See, this is you talking. I'm like, I'm ready, I'm ready to be wrong again.

I'm ready to take a wild guess. I'm ready to say four parts on this bad boy. Ooh, okay. I think. Yep. I don't know. I've learned from my mistakes. I learn nothing.

And retain nothing. I don't remember a damn thing. Okay. Well, should we wrap it up? Yeah. I will say one thing. We're really close to getting a thousand ratings on Apple Podcast. Oh, man, we're, I can taste it.

You can taste it. What's it taste like? An Oreo, a delicious Oreo? Like a shrimp, BLT. Crispy, delicious, fishy. Oh, okay. Salty. So anyway, if you haven't already, we really would appreciate a five-star rating and review.

Yes, that would do wonders for us. Mm-hmm. And if you happen to catch the beginning of this episode where Kristen won the hottest new game show. Yeah. Sweeping the nation. Sweeping the nation. It's who wants to become a patron of an old-timey podcast. So, you know, consider it.

Supporting our independently produced podcast. We're solo, baby. All right. Shall we? Yeah, let's do it. Kristen, you know what they say about history hoes? We always cite our sources. That's right.

For this episode, I got my information from the book, The Carving of Mount Rushmore by Rex Allen Smith, the documentary Mount Rushmore, as well as reporting from PBS, Smithsonian Magazine, and National Geographic. That's all for this episode. Thank you for listening to an old-timey podcast. Please give us a five-star review wherever you listen to podcasts,

and while you're at it, support us on Patreon at patreon.com slash old-timey podcast. Follow us on Instagram and Facebook and TikTok at Old Timey Podcast. And follow us individually. I'm Kristen Pitts-Keruso and he's gaming historian. And until next time, Tudaloo, Tata, and Cheerio. Goodbye.