Washington Monument during construction, August 14, 1879.
This rare photograph captures the monumental obelisk during its long, highly controversial period of architectural limbo following the American Civil War. Ground-breaking had taken place decades earlier in 1848, but construction was completely halted at the 152-foot mark due to a total collapse of funding and the outbreak of the war, leaving the jagged, roofless stump to stand for over twenty years as a humiliating national symbol of a fractured and broke republic. The resumption of work highlighted on August 14, 1879, under the strict management of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, marked a profound engineering milestone; crews had to carefully reinforce the original, unstable foundation with massive slabs of new concrete before they could begin stacking the heavy granite blocks that would ultimately push the monument to its historic 555-foot height, turning a stalled ruin into a towering symbol of national reunification.
via Library of Congress, no known restrictions
