Becoming “The Monumental City”: The Story of Baltimore’s Washington Monument

BHW 32: September 9, 2023

Figure 1. William Henry Jackson, “Washington Monument, Baltimore,” c. 1902, Library of Congress, public domain [1].

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In 1809, a group of Baltimoreans petitioned the Maryland General Assembly to create a monument to President George Washington, who passed away ten years prior. [2] The next year, in 1810, the General Assembly approved the petition and ordered the creation of a lottery to fund the monument’s construction. [3] The Assembly also appointed twenty-three Baltimoreans as a Board of Managers to oversee the task. [4] On July 4, 1815, a grand cornerstone laying ceremony marked progress on the project. [5] The statue was then raised to the top of the monument on November 25, 1829, marking its completion. [6] This story must not be separated from its Baltimore context. The monument was built in Baltimore despite the former president’s direct ties to Maryland’s capital of Annapolis. Indeed, when Washington resigned his command of the Continental Army in 1782, he did so in Annapolis. [7] This resignation is also the very event depicted by the Baltimore monument’s statue. [8] But it was residents of Maryland’s booming largest city who took the initiative to build support for a Washington monument, and who led its development. Enthusiastic Baltimoreans ensured that the first significant architectural monument in the United States would be built in Baltimore. It was also the first-planned monument to America’s first president. This elevated the then-third largest city in the country to further national prominence, attracting presidents and other influential Americans to Baltimore to see the project for themselves. [9] Taken together, the drumming up of enthusiasm for the Washington monument project, the activities of its architect, and the ceremonious celebrations of the monument’s development all provide valuable insights for this Baltimore City story.

Following President George Washington’s death in December of 1799, federal-level efforts at memorializing his life on a large scale fell into the fractious abyss of party politics. In the last decade of the eighteenth century, the opposition republicans and rival federalists in Congress broke into two distinct parties. [10] Republicans accused Washington of pandering to the federalists, adding to their ideological reasons for being opposed to his monumental memorialization. [11] Under republican thought, any display of extravagance or royalty was unacceptable, fueling opposition to the very idea of monuments. [12] As humanities scholar Kristin Ann Hass articulates, “The first thing to know about memorial and monument building in this early period is that Americans were inventing both their nation and the idea of a nation as a concept.” [13] Divergence between federalist and republican thought played a prominent role in this invention process at the level of federal politics. On the state level in Maryland, these tensions were less intense. The Baltimorean Washington monument petitioner arguments that the monument would inspire future generations to live nobly and honorably seem to have convinced the General Assembly. [14]

It appears wealthy Baltimoreans also influenced the planning and enthusiasm for this Washington monument. An intriguing aspect of this story is that the monument’s location was changed partway through the development process. Starting in the early nineteenth century, many of Baltimore’s social elite resided in Mount Vernon Square in a series of elaborate townhouses. As public historian Elizabeth Fee writes, “These houses were double the width of workers’ houses built at the time, and six times as large.” [15] In 1807, the city announced plans to build a new courthouse near Mount Vernon Square. Wealthy Baltimoreans living in this area grew concerned that the new civic structure could be visually unappealing and sought to prevent it from being built near their homes. They advocated for a monument to be built instead, on the site they feared the new courthouse would be placed. Initially, these homeowners advocated for a marble statue of George Washington. [16] But once they saw the plans for the Washington monument, the wealthy Baltimoreans changed their mind. They worried that the monument’s tall pillar might fall on their homes, or perhaps would attract a lightning strike. [17] This was also around autumn 1814, and they may have had their fears of structural collapse bolstered by the British bombardment of Baltimore as part of the War of 1812. [18] They expressed their preference to have the Battle Monument commemorating the 1814 defense of Baltimore placed on the site instead, as it was much shorter in stature. In response, the Managers of the Washington monument moved their project to a plot to the north donated by John Eager Howard, Washington’s former army chief of staff. [19]

The Board of Managers for Baltimore’s Washington monument held a contest to select an architect, ultimately choosing the 29-year-old Robert Mills. In Mills’s own words, he was “the first native [born] American that entered on the study of architecture and engineering in the United States.” [20] It is indeed true that Mills was the first person formally trained as an architect in the U.S. He studied under European masters living and working in America, specifically James Hoban and Benjamin Latrobe. Mills emphasized this pedigree in his Baltimore Washington monument proposal submission, and it was likely a consideration in his selection. He also leveraged his connections to the American social elite, having lived with his friend Thomas Jefferson at Monticello for two years and befriended James Madison. [21] Scrambling to finalize his plans for the monument, Mills successfully convinced the Managers to extend the submission deadline. They then selected his submission despite clear evidence that it would exceed the stipulated $100,000 budget. [22] It thus seems the Managers were quite committed to his selection. Mills relocated his family to Baltimore to oversee the project, living in the city from 1816 to 1820. [23] He returned to the city in 1827 to supervise the final stages of construction.

Later in his career Mills also designed the National Washington Monument in Washington, D.C., but his commemorative thinking around the first president began in Baltimore. In her biography of Mills, H. M. Pierce Gallagher writes, “The presence on Mount Vernon Place, Baltimore, of Mills’s master memorial, the Washington Monument, which in my mind even more remarkable than the National Washington Monument, the Obelisk, has caused this gracious square to rank among the great plazas of the world.” [24] This is of course a matter of personal opinion. With the D.C. project, the republican opposition to grandiose monuments went completely by the wayside. As Hass argues, “Its advocates, the Washington National Monument Society, wanted to throw off the humility that had guided previous memorial attempts. They wanted the biggest, tallest, most centrally located monument that engineering and political will could build.” [25] It seems they were largely successful, given how striking the D.C. monument remains to this day. Yet, it must not be forgotten that Mills’s selection for the project likely stemmed from public appreciation of the first Washington Monument he created, in Baltimore.

It is a matter of scholarly debate whether it was Mills or the Managers who selected the sculptor for the statue at the top of the Baltimore monument. [26] Regardless, the person chosen for the job was Enrico Causici. He is most famous for creating the statue at the top of the U.S. Capitol. [27] As historian James R. Wils points out, the statue at the top of the Baltimore monument does not really resemble Washington himself. [28] But given its elevation from the street, this often goes unnoticed. The lack of resemblance strengthens historian Robert P. Hay’s argument that, “the Washington image in the mind of a particular group was always a better reflection of the beliefs and interests of that group than it was of Washington’s objective likeness. At the time of his death, as throughout American history, men saw Washington more as they were and aspired to be than he was [italics in original].” [29] The most important feature of the statue is not its realism but the action it depicts. It shows Washington ceding command of the Continental Army in 1782, which as mentioned took place in Annapolis. This was seen as the ultimate example of republican civic virtue, with Washington putting the long-term success of the American Republic ahead of his own self-interest. [30]

The ceremonies commemorating Baltimore’s Washington monument, both the cornerstone ceremony and the raising of the statue, reveal how the project was experienced by Baltimoreans themselves. The cornerstone event took place on Independence Day, 1815, only ten months after the Battle of Baltimore. The recency and proximity of America’s second battle with Britain added to the significance of the occasion. 25,000 to 30,000 Baltimoreans attended the ceremony, joined by the Governor, Mayor, City Council, prominent Army officers, and others. A portrait of Washington painted by Rembrandt Peale, creator of Baltimore’s Peale Museum, was placed beside the cornerstone for the occasion. Beside this masterpiece was a painting depicting the monument planned for the site. [31] The event established a national precedent for prestigious monument-building celebrations. [32] That evening, fireworks glistened over Fort McHenry. [33] The impressive raising of the statue onto the monument’s pillar on November 25, 1829, was a similarly elaborate ceremony. The statue was hoisted up 178 feet using a system of pulleys, taking its place atop the skyline on a cold November day. [34] As public historian Cindy Kelly emphasizes, “Nowhere else in the country was there a monument like this one, created publicly—from lottery proceeds, private contributions, and state appropriations—or on such a scale.” [35] George Washington could now be seen by sky-gazing Baltimoreans around the city.

From the early stages of the development process, through the selection of Robert Mills as architect, to the ceremonies marking its construction, Baltimore’s Washington monument bolstered Baltimorean civic enthusiasm. With this project, the city also established national precedents and a national reputation for grand monuments. As Kelly argues, “During the first three decades of the nineteenth century, from 1800 to 1830, Baltimore constructed the most impressive monuments in America.” [36] It was in these years that the city earned the title “The Monumental City.” [37] By erecting the first significant monument to George Washington, Baltimore also took a stance in favor of elaborate memorialization of perceived national heroes. This ran contrary to some republican ideological views but was in tune with President Washington’s federalist leanings. As other major cities joined the monument-building frenzy in the remainder of the nineteenth century, Baltimore remained the first to embrace civic monumentality on a large scale. [38] Relatedly, the planners of the National Washington Monument in D.C. turned to Mills, the designer of the Baltimore monument, to create its national capital counterpart. Baltimore set the national precedent for majestic monuments, for monuments to the first president, and for public historical narrative construction in the American Republic.

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[1] William Henry Jackson, “Washington Monument, Baltimore,” photograph (Baltimore c. 1902), Detroit Publishing Co., Library of Congress, public domain, https://www.loc.gov/item/2016796251/.

[2] J. Jefferson Miller II, “The Designs for the Washington Monument in Baltimore,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 23, no. 1 (March 1964): 19, https://www.jstor.org/stable/988259.

[3] H. M. Pierce Gallagher, Robert Mills: Architect of the Washington Monument, 1781-1855 (New York: AMS Press, 1966 [1935]), 106, https://archive.org/details/robertmillsarchi0000hele.

[4] Miller, “The Designs for the Washington Monument,” 19.

[5] Cindy Kelly, Outdoor Sculpture in Baltimore: A Historical Guide to Public Art in the Monumental City (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011), 3, https://archive.org/details/outdoorsculpture0000kell.

[6] J. Thomas Scharf, History of Baltimore City and County (Philadelphia: Louis H. Everts, 1881 [1874]), 433, https://www.loc.gov/item/rc01003473/.

[7] Kelly, Outdoor Sculpture in Baltimore, 59.

[8] Kirk Savage, “The Self-Made Monument: George Washington and the Fight to Erect a National Memorial,” Winterthur Portfolio 22, no. 4 (Winter 1987): 232, https://www.jstor.org/stable/1181181.

[9] See James R. Wils, “E Pluribus Unum: Revolutionary Monuments and the Nation in the Early American Republic, 1776-1846” (PhD diss., North Carolina State University, 2021), 193, https://repository.lib.ncsu.edu/bitstream/handle/1840.20/38836/etd.pdf; Lance Humphries, “What’s in a Name? Baltimore—‘The Monumental City,’” Maryland Historical Magazine 110, no. 2 (Summer 2015): 257, https://www.mdhistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/MHMSummer2015.pdf; Scharf, History of Baltimore City and County, 375-376.

[10] Savage, “The Self-Made Monument,” 228.

[11] Robert P. Hay, “George Washington: American Moses” American Quarterly 21, no. 4 (Winter 1969): 780, https://www.jstor.org/stable/2711609.

[12] Savage, “The Self-Made Monument,” 229.

[13] Kristin Ann Hass, Blunt Instruments: Recognizing Racist Cultural Infrastructure in Memorials, Museums, and Patriotic Practices (Boston: Beacon Press, 2022), 39.

[14] Wils, “E Pluribus Unum,” 169.

[15] Elizabeth Fee, “Evergreen House and the Garrett Family: A Railroad Fortune,” in The Baltimore Book: New Views of Local History, ed. Elizabeth Fee, Linda Shopes, and Linda Zeidman (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991), 24, https://archive.org/details/baltimorebooknew0000unse.

[16] Humphries, “What’s in a Name?,” 254.

[17] Scharf, History of Baltimore City and County, 296-297.

[18] Wils, “E Pluribus Unum,” 173.

[19] Kelly, Outdoor Sculpture in Baltimore, 2.

[20] Robert Mills, Statistics of South Carolina (Spartanburg, SC: The Reprint Co., 1972 [1826]), 466, https://archive.org/details/statisticsofsout0000mill.

[21] Wils, “E Pluribus Unum,” 170; Gallagher, Robert Mills, 7-8.

[22] Miller, “The Designs for the Washington Monument,” 23-24.

[23] Gallagher, Robert Mills, 17.

[24] Gallagher, Robert Mills, 104.

[25] Hass, Blunt Instruments, 42.

[26] See Kelly, Outdoor Sculpture in Baltimore, 2; Wils, “E Pluribus Unum,” 212.

[27] Gallagher, Robert Mills, 110.

[28] Wils, “E Pluribus Unum,” 214-215.

[29] Hay, “George Washington: American Moses,” 788.

[30] Savage, “The Self-Made Monument,” 232.

[31] Scharf, History of Baltimore City and County, 375-376.

[32] Kelly, Outdoor Sculpture in Baltimore, 3.

[33] Scharf, History of Baltimore City and County, 376.

[34] Miller, “The Designs for the Washington Monument,” 27.

[35] Kelly, Outdoor Sculpture in Baltimore, 2.

[36] Kelly, Outdoor Sculpture in Baltimore, 1.

[37] Humphries, “What’s in a Name?,” 259.

[38] Kelly, Outdoor Sculpture in Baltimore, 1.