Professional Documents
Culture Documents
AMST 180
November 29, 2009
In 1922, Pulitzer Prize winning writer Carl Sandburg published a new collection
of poetry. Of the more than thirty poems, one in particular is highlighted in an article, a
straight into the sky, a “lean swimmer” against the “night sky.” Color contrast of the
brightly lit white stone against the dark expanse of sky, overwhelms visitors of the
Monument, a sentiment echoed in the use of “coal black” trees and “great white ghost.”
The “great white ghost” refers to the history behind the monument, to the man and legend
for which it is named. Sandburg successfully captures the experience of viewing the
a nighttime visit is telling. What was it about the nighttime images that inspired
Sandburg? And what is it that keeps people inspired by night skylines? There is
something indescribable or inexplicable that gives an after dark visit meaning. Perhaps
1
“Washington Monument by Night.” Carl Sandburg in Current Opinion, Oct. 1, 1922.
American Periodicals Series Online, 526, (accessed November 27, 2009).
there is more serenity and quiet, allowing for a better environment for introspection and
consideration of what’s being viewed. Perhaps the nighttime makes us feel smaller
in awe. There may be no way to articulate the feelings of people as they stand in front of
modern temples to fallen soldiers or great men, but there is one thing that makes it
of the 20th century. As technology progressed, it gave way to incredible uses of light,
especially in urban areas. The emergence of the electric displays at large fairs in urban
large scale dazzling displays attracted sightseers with their bright lights seen from great
distances; in the same way lighted skyscrapers were able to enhance the nighttime city
skyline to draw tourists. Spectacles, as David Nye argues, were also so attractive because
they were able to transport Americans away from the harsh living conditions of cities at
the turn of the 20th century and allow them to imagine a bright future complete with
electric lights.
The Monuments on the National Mall, at first with the Washington Monument,
were turned into spectacles as well, illuminated by bright, harsh lights. With the
Memorial, and Thomas Jefferson Memorial have been lighted with increasing attention to
detail, allowing for a more stylistic lighting schemes that have evolved along side
technology. As lighting became more commonplace, it also became taken for granted,
people no longer remembered a time when streets were dark. People do not view grand
displays of electricity as spectacular in the same sense that they did in the late 19th and
early 20th century but the aforementioned monuments fit as spectacles; however, instead
of using light to transport people into the future, the monuments use light to transport
We will revisit the monuments, but first we must look at a little history of
The Edison light was first demonstrated in 1879 in Menlo Park by Edison
himself, and four months later, the little town of Wabash, Indiana lit up its streets. One
of the first spectacles was simple lighting of shop windows and streetlights. Wabash
welcomed trainloads of visitors who were “overwhelmed with awe, as if in the presence
of the supernatural” when the lights turned on.2 Residents of another small Indiana town,
Muncie, similarly felt this experience when one resident installed a coal-burning Edison
plant and lit several stores. To these residents, illumination in its most basic form “was
ideally suited to staging a spectacle.”3 The spectacle created by lighting only continued to
As David Nye contends, while lighting does have functional purposes, like safety
and visibility, lighting also performs “symbolic expression”—that is, that the use of
lighting went well beyond necessity and became spectacle. An early instance of such
grand displays was the first lighting of the Statue of Liberty in 1886, which placed at the
bottom of the statue incendiaries with the power of eight thousand candles.4 Also in New
2
Wabash Plain Dealer, Feb. 7, 14, 21, 28, 1880, quoted in David Nye, Electrifying
America (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990), 2-3.
3
David Nye, Electrifying America (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990), 4.
4
David Nye, Electrifying America (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990), 32.
York City, the headquarters for the Edison Company celebrated the one hundredth
in fabric and placing several stars on the building as well, each made of a few light
bulbs5. This all occurred in a time when electric lights not only were scattered in New
Once fairs became popular starting with the 1894 Chicago World’s Fair and
continuing until San Francisco in 1915, the spectacles became bigger and brighter.
“Electricity buildings” were among the main attractions that allowed those in attendance
to escape their daily trappings and imagine a totally industrialized and electrified future.
The dazzling lights lured many Americans; as Nye finds, about “one-third of the
population of the United States saw the electrical displays” at the Chicago, Buffalo and
St. Louis fairs between 1894 and 1904.6 These staggering numbers are a testament to the
draw electric spectacle’s possessed. It also supports one of Nye’s major points that
people needed an escape from the world around them. Before the turn of the century,
America was in a turbulent period, full of corrupt politicians, plagued by strikes and
unfair labor laws that allowed for rapid industrialization, as well as massively expanding
specialists who could use their skills to plan how to light attractions with theatricality and
employ other special effects, like colored light. These specialists are the ancestors of
modern lighting designers and technicians. While technology limited the scope of their
expression, the lighting specialists of the early 20th century were able to create spectacles
5
David Nye, Electrifying America (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990), 33.
6
David Nye, Electrifying America (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990), 33-34.
at fairs that awed Americans. The types of lights, like arc lights, which lack the dimming
capabilities of their more modern counterparts, were not as easily controlled as later
models.
A question of when the Washington Monument was first lit exactly remains
unanswered. Sandburg’s poem clearly proves that the Washington Monument was lit in
1922. Lighting this early is supported several other pieces of information. In an article in
Congressional Digest giving interesting facts about the Monument, it mentions that its
“gleaming white beauty, obvious by day, is enhanced at nightfall, when a gentle play of
electric light, it appears, a slender silver shaft, ever pointing upward.” 7 In a collection of
Monument are grouped together. The first three show the monument with the reflecting
pool in the foreground, and two of them date back to 1905 and the other to 1907. The
fourth depicts the scene at night with no reflecting pool in the foreground but is not given
a specific date by the editor of the book. The simple floodlighting depicted in the
sketched postcard, in addition to its grouping with postcards from early in the twentieth
century, support the notion that the lighting began around 1907. Additionally, the
knowledge that the Statue of Liberty was first lighted in 1889 means that lighting the
The first mention of lighting and the Washington Monument mentioned by the
Commission of Fine Arts (CFA) is from 1955. There is some significance to this
information, since the Commission needs to approve any proposed changes to lighting, or
any aesthetic aspect, of buildings, streets, or parks in Washington DC. That means if
7
1931. "The Washington Monument." Congressional Digest 10, no. 5: 130-132.
Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed November 16, 2009).
there had been no mention of lighting from 1922 to 1955, there had been no attempts at
The Washington Monument, like other large-scale displays of bright light before
it, certainly created a spectacle. Although unlike previous displays of light, the
Washington Monument did not need darkness to appear spectacular; it could awe any
American during the day just as much as the night. However, as we see from Carl
Sandburg’s poem, the nighttime view of this monument evokes inspiration, and a return
to history. The second part of the poem delves into the history of the man who inspired
the monument.
moments as general of the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, the freezing
nights spent in Valley Forge over Christmas. The nighttime view of the Washington
Monument evoked thoughts of the nights Washington spent with his troops; Sandburg
connects the present to the past in the lines “red footprints wrote on the snow” and “stone
shoots into stars here.” He also ties this verse to the first one by repeating the phrase
“half-moon mist.” The imagery of the man standing alone also fits with the imagery of
the monument standing alone against the night sky. The lighting of the monument in
8
“Washington Monument by Night.” Carl Sandburg in Current Opinion, Oct. 1, 1922.
American Periodicals Series Online, 526, (accessed November 27, 2009).
1922 when the poem was written, although not modernized yet, leaves visitors inspired
and wrapped up in the history of George Washington, just as visitors to fairs viewed
With the old style of lighting that Sandburg would have seen when composing his
poem, the lighting was “inadequate” and “spotty,” possibly not even fully light from top
to bottom.9 In 1955, the CFA proposed a new plan for the Monument that would
gradually increase the candlelight power to be four times the previous lights’ strength and
also suggested using hydraulic lamps that could be in the ground during the day and rose
at night. With this, we a prime example of how new technology impacted the lighting of
the monuments; early lighting could not have allowed for lights that retracted into the
ground, or the even lighting the Commission found desirable. The Monument’s original
lighting had inspired Carl Sandburg to recall Washington’s troubled nights at Valley
Forge but shifts in the lighting would inspire visitors to recall another part of history
Washington Monument to the past further and create a more visible link between the
viewer and history. In 1986, the lighting of the monument was decided to be
“increasingly spotty” and “unsatisfactory in several other respects” by the CFA.10 The
fixtures that had been installed in 1957 were no longer functioning properly and the
Commission came up with a three light system so that light fixtures would block no view.
This new system also would include illumination on the east and west sides of the
9
Commission of Fine Arts meeting minutes, April 13, 1955, p. 13. Commission of Fine
Arts, Washington DC.
10
Commission of Fine Arts meeting minutes, January 15, 1986, p. 3. Commission of Fine
Arts, Washington DC.
monument as to increase the three-dimensional look of the obelisk.11 The new design
when installed in 1988 also coordinated the color and intensity of the lighting of the
technology and style, like the development of smaller but stronger fixtures, as well as use
of lights to enhance the monument’s shape, helped to create a better lighting scheme for
The most recent of lighting renovations on the Washington Monument took place
in 2004. In a presentation to the CFA, landscape architect Laurie Olin told the
Commission he wanted to “make clear how the obelisk was built, its material, and the
phases of construction.”12 As opposed to the history of man behind the monument, Olin
wanted to highlight the history of the monument itself. It was built in two stages, first
between 1848 and 1856, interrupted by a lack of funds and the uncertainty of the nation’s
future, and then completed in 1884.13 During these two periods, different types of stone,
Maryland and Massachusetts white marble, were used and a visible line about one
hundred and fifty feet up the monument delineates the shift. Olin also wanted to use
uplighting on the monument to control the shadows to enhance “the details of the stone
construction.”14 These techniques that enhance the features of the monument bring an
This use of light to promote the history of the monument brings into question the
11
Commission of Fine Arts meeting minutes, Exhibit B, January 15, 1986, p.3.
Commission of Fine Arts, Washington DC.
12
Commission of Fine Arts meeting minutes, November 18, 2004, Commission of Fine
Arts, Washington DC.
13
“Washington Monument.” National Parks Service.
http://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/wash/dc72.htm (accessed November 22, 2009)
14
Commission of Fine Arts meeting minutes, November 18, 2004, Commission of Fine
Arts, Washington DC
motivations for this technique. Olin’s motivations may have simply been to show visitors
the disparity in the stone color so they may question it and learn about the history of the
monument. His technique certainly enriches the history behind the monument by adding
another layer of which many visitors are unaware. This technique becomes significant
when considering that people think of certain pasts when viewing the monument; for
Sandburg, it was Valley Forge. For another visitor it may be when Washington warned
against the two party system in his farewell address. Yet, when the lighting purposely
promotes the history of the monument instead of the man to whom it was made, the
visitor’s perception of the monument may change. We are naturally drawn to the
brightest part of our field of vision15, and in this case, the line where the color shifts
becomes central; Appreciating the architecture and structure becomes the central focus of
the viewer’s eyes, as opposed to the symbols the structure represents. Technology has
changed the way in which the monuments are perceived by allowing more attention to
fall on the details of the monument, thus, adding to and altering the history that people
Like the Washington Monument, nighttime views of the Lincoln Memorial also
inspired poetry. Completed in 1922, the Lincoln Memorial was temporarily lit as a test
but architect Henry Bacon disapproved.16 In 1927, “quiet and subdued” illumination of
the Lincoln Memorial started, and remained unchanged until 1962. In 1955, poet
Langston Hughes was inspired by the nighttime view of this memorial in his poem
Quiet—
Since I didn’t have time to finish this part, here’s a brief outline of the rest of the paper:
A. I plan on finishing out this section by anaysing Hughes’s poem in a similar
fashion as Sandburg’s. I will also lay out the changes and new lighting designs
outlined in CFA minutes. Then I will discuss how the new lighting designs have
shaped perceptions of the monument and which histories are associated with the
memorial.
B. The Jefferson Memorial section will proceed a bit differently. There has been a
lot of change with this memorial and I will detail it from the CFA minutes as well
as several articles from architectural magazines. The designer’s intentions will be
analyzed as well as their impact on perceptions of the monument.
C. The final section of the paper will discuss how the Vietnam and Korean
memorials are the anti-spectacle. Both are low the ground, made of dark
materials, and lit dimly. They, like the other 3 memorials, do promote the history
of these events, and I will discuss how they do so using their lighting, with
information from the CFA minutes as well as several outside articles.
17
“Lincoln Monument: Washington by Langston Hughes” Old Poetry.
<<http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/38986-Langston-Hughes-Lincoln-Monument--
Washington>>>