Construction of Mount Rushmore Construction of Mount Rushmore The construction of Mount Rushmore National Memorial took 14 years, from 1927 to 1941. Doane Robinson of the South Dakota Historical Society wanted a monument to be built in South Dakota in order to help the economy of the state by attracting tourism. In 1923, he proposed that this monument should be built from the granite cliffs in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Senator Peter Norbeck of South Dakota approved the proposal, and federal funding helped the project. Robinson asked architect and sculptor Gutzon Borglum to sculpt and design the monument. Borglum decided to use
Joan W. Patten Joan W. Patten Joan Wholey Patten (1924–2005) was an American sculptor and scholar of Mayan art. Patten was born in New York City on June 5, 1924. She was one of two children of Willam Francis and Elsa Brainin Wholey who ran an office furnishings business in New York City and maintained an upper-class standard of living. She attended the Fox Hollow School for girls in Lenox, Massachusetts, as well as The Hewitt School in New York City. At age ten, a friend of her parents, the American sculptor Gutzon Borglum, suggested she study with the American sculptor Harriet Whitney