The Lincoln Memorial, the national monument to honor America’s 16th
president, is located near the Vietnam and Korean Veterans Memorials at the
west end of the National Mall. Designed by New York architect, Henry Bacon, the
memorial is based on the design of a Greek temple with 36 Doric columns,
representing all the states, North and South, at the time of Lincoln’s death. All 48 state names that made up the country when
the memorial was completed in 1922, are inscribed around the top of the outside
of the memorial and a plaque was added later recognizing Alaska and Hawaii.
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| Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C. |
Up a long set of steps and inside the chamber is the impressive
nineteen-foot realistic sculpture of the sitting President Lincoln. When facing
the Lincoln statue, on the right wall Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address is
inscribed, and on the left, the Gettysburg Address. Above the inscriptions on
each side are murals painted by Jules Guerin representing emancipation and
reunification. When facing out towards the mall from the chamber, on the left there is a small
bookstore through a door off the chamber. On the other side is an elevator that
goes down to the plaza level and opens into a small exhibit area with
photographs and information about the construction of the memorial and some of
the demonstrations that have been held at the memorial over the years.
The architect, Bacon befitting
the idea of national unity, used a variety of stones in the
construction. Massachusetts granite, Colorado marble, Tennessee pink marble,
Indiana limestone, and Alabama marble were all used in different parts of the
memorial The Lincoln statue itself is made of 28 pieces of Georgia marble.
An African-American, Robert Moton, gave the key-note address to the
segregated attendees at the dedication of in 1922, but it would take an event
in 1939 to make the memorial a focal point for civil rights demonstrations in
Washington D.C. A proposal had been made for the well-known African-American
singer Marian Anderson to perform at the DAR Constitution Hall in Washington.
The Daughters of the American Revolution would not allow the performance
because of her race. Eleanor Roosevelt, with the help of her husband, the
President, arranged for her to perform on Easter Sunday morning at the Lincoln
Memorial where some 75,000 people attended. Then in 1963, the memorial’s most
famous event occurred when Martin Luther King gave his “I Have a Dream” speech
at the March on Washington. The spot where King stood on the steps of the
memorial is engraved. It could be argued that the Lincoln Memorial commemorates
the two most important speeches in American history, The Gettysburg Address of
1863 and Martin Luther King’s speech of 1963. President Obama spoke at the memorial on the 50th anniversary of the King speech.
Two of the most discussed urban legends regarding the monument are that
the Robert E. Lee can be seen in the hair on the back of Lincoln’s head (not
likely) and that Lincoln’s hands are making the shape of his initials “A” and
“L” in sign language. There might be
something to this idea, the sculpture, Daniel Chester French, had a deaf son,
and Lincoln had signed the bill authorizing Gallaudet University, created to
educate deaf students, to grant college degrees. There memorial is open 24
hours a day, park rangers are on duty until midnight and there is no fee for
visitors.
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