Adam Lerner most playful, most inviting arts and culture program suburbia had ever seen.” Since the early 1990s, Lerner’s scholarship has focused on the relationship between art and public life. Lerner co-edited the book "Reimagining the Nation," published by Open University Press (1993), including his own essay on nineteenth-century sculpture and French nationalism. He wrote his dissertation on early twentieth-century American monuments, emphasizing the career of Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor of Mount Rushmore. His contribution to the Corcoran Gallery of Art’s 2002-03 biennial exhibition catalogue “The Museum and the Multiplex” was the subject of a symposium of the same name at the
Construction of Mount Rushmore at least there be two Republicans and at least one Democrat represented) because of Theodore Roosevelt's introduction of the National Park Service. Borglum's original design was a sculpture of each president intended to go down to their waists, but time constraints and funding only provided for their heads. Ivan Houser, father of John Sherrill Houser, was assistant sculptor to Gutzon Borglum during the early years of carving; he began working with Borglum shortly after the inception of the monument and was with Borglum for a total of seven years. When Houser left Gutzon to devote his talents to his own