Archive for September, 2011

Expert engineers scaled the Washington Monument today in an effort to catalog every defect that occurred to the structure during the August earthquake that shook Virginia, the nation’s capital, and surrounding states.

“Climbers will work their way up and down the sides of the entire monument, snap photos with a digital camera and tap the stones with a soft mallet, listening for indications of damage,” according to The Associated Press. They’ll also be carrying two-way radios and iPads.

Check out the AP story and see photos of the monument being scaled here.

Above image courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Mount Vernon has officially launched its brand-new website. Find all the same great information you’ve always searched for at mountvernon.org, but in a flashy new format.

Plus, check out our plan-your-day feature, which allows visitors to tailor their experience at the estate based on their areas of interest and time limitations. Our George Washington timeline allows web surfers to peruse Washington’s life, and our online museum allows them to peruse his belongings. There’s even an interactive map.

Keep abreast of upcoming events just as before but using our sleek new interface, and then find us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, or watch us on YouTube using the panel to the right. Visitors can now buy tickets to the estate online in addition to retail items, and even our search-engine optimization is much-improved, so by all means, seek out that tidbit of Washington trivia you’ve been dying to know. Happy surfing, from Mount Vernon.

Mount Vernon’s education staff was extremely inspired by an opinion piece by Norm Augustine in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal. As the former under secretary of the Army and retired chairman and CEO of Lockheed Martin, Augustine emphasized the importance of history in forming tomorrow’s top execs and leaders. We’d love to see your thoughts in our comment section. An excerpt from the beginning of the piece, in which Augustine asks readers which subject they think American 12th graders do the poorest in, is below:

“With all the talk of America’s very real weaknesses in the STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and math), you might be surprised to learn that the answer — according to the federal government’s National Assessment of Educational Progress — is neither science nor math. And despite what might be suggested by the number of underwater home loans, high-school seniors actually fare best in economics.

“Which leaves history as the answer, the subject in which students perform the most poorly. It’s a result that puts American employers and America’s freedoms in a worrisome spot. But why should a C grade in history matter to the C-suite? After all, if a leader can make the numbers, does it really matter if he or she can recite the birthdates of all the presidents? Well, it’s not primarily the memorized facts that have current and former CEOs like me concerned. It’s the other things that subjects like history impart: critical thinking, research skills, and the ability to communicate clearly and cogently. Such skills are certainly important for those at the top, but in today’s economy they are fundamental to performance at nearly every level. A failing grade in history suggests that students are not only failing to comprehend our nation’s story and that of our world, but also failing to develop skills that are crucial to employment across sectors.” — Norm Augustine

Photo: Flickr Commons/Ryan Stanton

Contemporary visitors to Mount Vernon enter the estate through our orientation center, but in the 18th century, company arrived at the Mansion via the estate’s west gate, an outpost three-quarters of a mile away from the house.

From this vantage point, members of the carriage-faring class gained a sweeping view of George Washington’s property, punctuated by the Mansion itself. Prior to the Revolutionary War, visitors took a straight path that led directly from the west gate and the two porter houses that flank it, to Washington’s door. In the above picture, the lane would have sliced through the middle of the rolling green fields.

After the war, however, Washington altered his lawn in keeping with a vogue gardening trend: the curved line. He placed two serpentine walking paths along the sides of the bowling green, the lawn directly in front of the Mansion. Guests would travel down the straight path from the west gate then veer right just before the green and loop around through some of the estate’s side building before arriving at the general’s door.

Today the west gate is inaccessible to visitors, although those in the know can travel down Old Mount Vernon Road and find the viewpoint at the intersection with Old Mill Road.