Click the photo for more
Washington Monument.

On May 2, 1814 Robert Mills (1781-1855) won a national competition for the Baltimore Washington Monument, a colossal 160 foot column that would be the first major memorial to the president. Mills worked at the project, on and off, over the next 20 years, modifying it according to changing public taste, but eventually resolved the memorial into something for which he would always be proud.

The project incorporated a major program of emblematic sculpture including friezes, wreaths, inverted torches, and stars, all of which Mills identified as "sarcophagic emblems" associated with fame and immortality. In the remarks accompanying his design, Mills noted that monuments should be characterized by solidity and simplicity of form, but also "cheerfulness" so as not to evoke "gloom or disgust." Mills felt that "it is the character, the personality of a structure, that should appeal before beauty of line or ornamentation."

Charles Dickens, generally unimpressed with the art--as well as the manners--of the United States, offered cordial praise in his American Notes to "the beautiful column in honor of George Washington in Baltimore."