Mount Rushmore National Memorial
A coin depicting the workers who carved the faces of four presidents into the rock.
Mount Rushmore National Memorial is a famous monument in the Black Hills of the state of South Dakota, where the faces of four presidents are carved into a granite cliff. With the enormous faces of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln, it is counted among the symbols that represent the United States.
Interestingly, the reverse of the coin depicts not the finished face sculptures themselves but the workers carving the Mount Rushmore memorial. Showing a scene of people hanging from the cliff and shaping the rock, it emphasizes that this enormous work did not come about on its own but was made by human hands.
The Mount Rushmore carving was completed after countless workers labored over many years on the rugged cliff, braving danger. This design, which chose the process of making rather than the finished faces, turns our eyes to the sweat and toil of the people hidden behind the grandeur of the result.
This memorial was approved for creation on March 3, 1925, and the project began. After long construction, it took on the form it has today, and it has now become an attraction that countless people visit each year.
This coin in the America the Beautiful series gently reminds us that behind the great works we admire there have always been people who labored without their names being known.