Gutzon Borglum won out over sculptor J.Q.A. Ward, a much older and more established artist and one whom Borglum had clashed with earlier in regard to the National Sculpture Society. At the unveiling of the Sheridan statue, one observer, President Theodore Roosevelt (whom Borglum was later to include in the Mount Rushmore portrait group), declared that it was "first rate"; a critic wrote that "as a sculptor Gutzon Borglum was no longer a rumor, he was a fact." (Smith:see References) Borglum was active in the committee that organized the New York Armory Show of 1913, the birthplace of modernism in American art.
Gutzon Borglum our own," he looked to create art that was "American, drawn from American sources, memorializing American achievement," according to a 1908 interview article. Borglum was highly suited to the competitive environment surrounding the contracts for public buildings and monuments, and his public sculpture is sited all around the United States. In 1908, Borglum won a competition for a statue of the Civil War General Philip Sheridan to be placed in Sheridan Circle in Washington, D.C. A second version of "General Philip Sheridan" was erected in Chicago, Illinois, in 1923. Winning this competition was a personal triumph for him because he