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Daily Mail
02-06-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
Trump's dream to build a $34 million 'heroes' garden hit with major setback
President Donald Trump may face headaches as he tries to cobble together hundreds of statues before the 250th birthday of the U.S. Speaking in front of Mount Rushmore during his first term in 2020, Trump vowed that statues would soon be going up in America. Half a decade later Trump is working to make good on the promise he made before the stone faces of the most revered presidents. But his plan to create a national sculpture garden, replete with the busts of at least 250 American heroes, all before July 2026, is already facing major hiccups. 'It seems completely unworkable,' Daniel Kunitz, editor of Sculpture magazine, recently said of the president's plan for the National Garden of American Heroes. The main issue, Kunitz told Politico, is timing; the creators will have just nine months to produce their works. 'It doesn't seem to be very serious,' Kunitz said of the project. 'It's sort of trolling.' One sculptor even suggested that Trump may have to look to China for help with his ambitious project. President-elect Donald Trump and family pose at the end of a welcome celebration at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, on January 19, 2017 Dylan Farnum, who formerly headed up the highly-esteemed Walla Walla Foundry, told Politico that America simply does not have the number of artists needed for such a task. 'You'd be flooding the capacity of artists in this country who do that kind of stuff, and the capacity of foundries,' Farnum said. 'There are places where you can really whip some stuff off. They can do it in China.' Trump revamped his plan for the sculpture display in a new executive order earlier this year. 'The National Garden will be built to reflect the awesome splendor of our country's timeless exceptionalism,' the order says. 'The National Garden will feature a roll call of heroes who deserve honor, recognition, and lasting tribute because of the battles they won, the ideas they championed, the diseases they cured, the lives they saved, the heights they achieved, and the hope they passed down to all of us.' The action also calls for the garden to be completed 'as expeditiously as possible.' However, it remains unclear where the garden will be or what the design will look like. The order calls for an appropriate space to be identified, though the governor of South Dakota has offered a location close to Mount Rushmore. The White House is currently receiving artists' applications to create sculptures until July 1. The application process is being overseen by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). The group, along with the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) will contribute a total of $34 million for the project. Artists are asked to volunteer 10 - 20 names from Trump's list of U.S. heroes that they want to bring to life. A single applicant can be selected for up to three sculptures. Those selected can earn up to $200,000 per sculpture. NBA legend Kobe Bryant, signer Whitney Houston, American gardener Johnny 'Appleseed' Chapman, Walt Disney, Harriet Tubman and more are on the list of heroes. George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Jackie Robinson and Rosa Parks are also some of the names on the expansive catalog. Artists will not know the status of their applications until September - meaning they won't know which famous American they will be sculpting until then. Once approved, artists will have until June 2026 to complete there statues and get them to the government roughly a month before the nation's 250th birthday on July 4, 2026. 'You put out an [request for proposal] and then there's just a long period working with the institutions,' Kunitz said. The editor noted that the Trump administration will likely work closely on the designs with the artists, which could, and likely will, slow down work on the hundreds of sculptures. 'A year is highly unlikely,' he said of the turnaround time.
Yahoo
25-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump's ‘Garden of American Heroes' is a monument to celebrity and achievement – paid for with history funding that benefits everyday Americans
Donald Trump first came up with his plan for a 'National Garden of American Heroes' at the end of his first term, before President Joe Biden quietly tabled it upon replacing Trump in the White House. Now, with Trump back in the Oval Office – and with the country's 250th anniversary fast approaching – the project is back. The National Endowment for the Humanities is seeking to commission 250 statues of famous Americans from a predetermined list, to be displayed at a location yet to be determined. It isn't clear who compiled the list of 250 to be honored. It includes names that are largely recognizable and whose accomplishments are well-known: politicians like Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy; jurists Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia; activists such as Martin Luther King, Jr. and Harriet Tubman; celebrities such as John Wayne and Julia Child; and sports stars like Kobe Bryant and Babe Ruth. The statue garden coincides with an executive order from March 2025 in which the Trump administration denounced what it saw as historical revisionism that had recast the country's 'unparalleled legacy of advancing liberty, individual rights, and human happiness.' Instead, it had constructed a story of the nation that portrayed it 'as inherently racist, sexist, oppressive, or otherwise irredeemably flawed,' which 'fosters a sense of national shame.' 'We don't need to overemphasize the negative,' explained Lindsey Halligan, a 35-year-old insurance lawyer who is named in the order as one of the people tasked with reforming museums that receive government funds. Trump often casts himself as a man of the people. But as historians, we don't see a garden of heroes as a populist effort. To us, it represents a top-down approach to U.S. history, akin to the hagiography that Americans already regularly get from movies, television and professional sports. And it comes at a cost: It's going to be paid for with funds that had been previously allotted to tell stories about people and places that may be less familiar than the proposed figures for Trump's garden. But they're nonetheless meaningful to countless communities across the nation. Trump's fixation on America's luminaries is adjacent to the 'great man' theory of history. In 1840, Scottish philosopher and historian Thomas Carlyle published 'On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History,' in which he argued that 'The History of the world is but the Biography of great men.' American biologist and eugenicist Frederick Adams Woods embraced the great man theory in his 1913 work, 'The Influence of Monarchs: Steps in a New Science of History.' In it, he investigated 386 rulers in Western Europe from the 12th century until the French Revolution. He proposed a scientific measurement to quantify the relative impact these rulers had on the course of civilization. Then and now, many other historians and sociologists have pushed back, arguing that the 'Great Man' view of history oversimplifies the past by attributing major historical events to the actions of a few influential individuals, while ignoring broader social, economic and cultural forces. Nonetheless, it continues to have broad appeal. It's very popular among corporate leaders, for example, many of whom like to portray themselves as visionaries, with their business successes proof of their genius. Trump's garden of heroes reflects his penchant for celebrating wealth, champions and successes, akin to what Walt Disney tried to capture with his Disney World ride Carousel of Progress, which highlights American technological advances. However, the U.S. already has a national statuary hall, which opened in the U.S. Capitol in 1870. Each state has contributed two statues; for example, Massachusetts honors Samuel Adams and John Winthrop, while Ohio celebrates James Garfield and Thomas Edison. Today there are 102 statutes, though just 14 women. Importantly, the roster is fluid – not set in stone – and reflects debates over whom the nation ought to celebrate. Over time, the representation has become slightly more inclusive. The first woman, Illinois educator Frances Willard, was added in 1905. Only in 2022 did a Black American appear, when educator Mary Bethune replaced a Confederate general from Florida. And in 2024, Johnny Cash replaced James Paul Clarke, a former governor and senator from Arkansas with Confederate sympathies. We don't think there's anything wrong with celebrating and honoring popular figures in American history. But we do think there's an issue when it comes at the expense of other historical and archival projects. The New York Times reported that US$34 million for the project would come from funds formerly allocated to the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities, whose budget has been cut by 85%. Many of the grants that have been slashed explore, celebrate and preserve history in ways that stand in stark contrast to a statue garden. They involve, as Gal Beckerman writes in the Atlantic, efforts that 'are about asking questions, about uncovering hidden or overlooked experiences, about closely examining texts or adding to the public record.' They include one that supports the digitization of local newspapers and archival records; another to collect and preserve oral histories of local communities; a grant that funds the production of documentaries and podcasts about local communities; traveling exhibitions that bring items from the Smithsonian's collection to small towns and rural areas; and a grant to fund the collection of first-person accounts of Native Americans who attended U.S. government-run boarding schools. These and countless similar history projects serve millions of people far from Washington, and they have broad support from lawmakers and citizens of all political stripes. In 1938, as forces of fascism gathered in Europe, a Connecticut high school social science teacher said, 'The greatest need of America, on the threshold of the greatest epoch of its history, is citizens who understand the past out of which the nation has grown. … Let us look into the souls of the leaders and the common people who have made America great.' In his 2016 campaign, Trump promised to work on behalf of everyday Americans – the 'forgotten man and woman.' But the proposed statue garden of famous figures cuts out the common people from America's story – not just as subjects of history, but as its stewards for future generations. With funds slashed from organizations dedicated to local history, we wonder how many more stories will go untold. This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Jennifer Tucker, Wesleyan University and Peter Rutland, Wesleyan University Read more: Old statues of Confederate generals are slowly disappearing – will monuments honoring people of color replace them? What's going on when the Virgin Mary appears and statues weep? The answers aren't just about science or the supernatural Why giant statues of Hindu gods and leaders are making Muslims in India nervous Jennifer Tucker has received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities for research that examines the social and cultural role of modern technology, such as facial recognition, through a historical lens. Peter Rutland does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
