How Mellon chief Elizabeth Alexander (and $500 million) changed the nature of the monuments we revere

You could say Elizabeth Alexander was raised among monuments. Growing up in Washington, D.C., she was surrounded by them. When she was a toddler, her parents took her to the March on Washington in 1963, where hundreds of thousands of protesters brought ebullient life to the steps of the temple-like Lincoln Memorial. When she was a girl, someone told her that the obelisk-shaped Washington Monument was actually “God’s pencil.” As a student, she took field trips to the various memorials whose designs were inspired by Classical architecture. Of these structures,...