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99% Invisible

The Capitol Columns

99% Invisible

SiriusXM Podcasts and Roman Mars

Design, Arts

4.827.5K Ratings

🗓️ 6 May 2011

⏱️ 7 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

If you were present for any of the presidential inaugurations, from Andrew Jackson to Dwight D. Eisenhower, you saw the solemn oath of office taken between twenty-two smooth, sandstone columns at the East Portico of the U.S. Capitol Building.

Transcript

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0:00.0

We get support from UC Davis, a globally ranked university working to solve the world's most pressing problems in food, energy, health, education, and the environment.

0:10.0

UC Davis researchers collaborate and innovate in California and around the globe to find

0:14.2

transformational solutions.

0:16.1

It's all part of the university's mission to promote quality of life for all living things.

0:20.1

Find out more at 21st century.

0:21.9

UC Davis. edu.c. dot edu

0:28.4

this is 99% invisible I'm Roman Mars. If you were standing in the crowd for the President of the United States,

0:37.0

if you were standing in the crowd for any of the presidential inaugurations from Andrew Jackson

0:42.0

through Dwight D Eisenhower, you'd have seen the solemn oath of

0:45.9

office taken between 24 tall smooth columns at the East Portico of the United States

0:51.7

Capitol Building.

0:55.2

When the columns were installed in 1824, the sandstone slabs themselves that made up the columns

1:01.0

even before they were erected were considered so important that they were transported

1:05.7

from the Potomac River to Capitol Hill by human power alone.

1:10.4

No lowly mules were deemed fit to move such sacred objects.

1:15.0

But they didn't have quite the same standing in 1958.

1:20.0

They had been taken off the East Front when the east front was extended.

1:24.4

They were stored down along the Potomac and created slowly disintegrating.

1:29.0

After the renovation of the capital, the columns all got the boot.

1:32.1

The notion was horrifying to Ethel Garrett, and she

1:35.1

conscripted her friend Betty Ray.

1:37.0

I'm Elizabeth C. Ray known as Betty Ray.

...

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