A monument in Washington, District of Columbia, USA, dedicated in 1922 to President Abraham Lincoln. The building, designed on the plan of a Greek temple by Henry Bacon (18661924), houses the statue of Lincoln (6 m/19 ft high) by Daniel Chester French (18501931).
| Lincoln Memorial | |
|---|---|
| IUCN Category III (Natural Monument) | |
| The Lincoln Memorial | |
| Location: | Washington, D.C., USA |
| Coordinates: | 38°53′22″N, 77°3′1″W |
| Area: | 107.43 acres (0.43 km²) |
| Established: | October 15, 1966 |
| Visitation: | 3,638,806 (in 2005) |
| Governing body: | National Park Service |
The Lincoln Memorial, on the extended axis of the National Mall in Washington, D.C., is a United States Presidential Memorial built for President Abraham Lincoln.
The building is in the form of a Greek Doric temple, and contains a large seated sculpture of Lincoln and inscriptions of two well-known speeches by Lincoln.
Like the other monuments on the National Mall, including the nearby Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Korean War Veterans Memorial, and National World War II Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial is administered by the National Park Service under its National Mall and Memorial Parks group.
Design and construction
The Lincoln Monument Association was incorporated by the United States Congress in March 1867 to build a memorial to Lincoln. Congress formally authorized the memorial on February 9, 1911, and the first stone of the Lincoln Memorial was not put into place until Lincoln's birthday, February 12, 1914. By a happy afterthought, the 36 columns required for the design were seen to represent the 36 states of the Union at the time of Lincoln's death, and their names were inscribed in the entablature above each column.
Interior
The focus of the memorial is Daniel Chester French's sculpture of Lincoln, seated. French studied many of Mathew Brady's photographs of Lincoln, and depicted the president as worn and pensive, gazing eastwards down the Reflecting Pool at the capital's starkest emblem of the Union, the Washington Monument. It is said that French, who had a hearing-impaired daughter, carved Lincoln's hands to sign the letters "A" and "L" in American Sign Language. In one, the Gettysburg Address is inscribed on its south wall, and in the other, Lincoln's second inaugural address is inscribed on its north wall. In the first column of Lincoln's second inaugural address, the word "Future" is misspelled, reading "Euture." On the wall behind the statue, visible over the statue's head, is this dedication:
| IN THIS TEMPLE |
| AS IN THE HEARTS OF THE PEOPLE |
| FOR WHOM HE SAVED THE UNION |
| THE MEMORY OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN |
| IS ENSHRINED FOREVER |
Events
In 1939, the singer Marian Anderson was refused permission to perform at Constitution Hall in Washington because of her skin color. Ickes, the Secretary of the Interior, arranged for Anderson to perform from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, to a live audience of 70,000, and a nationwide radio audience.
Images of the memorial
The Lincoln Memorial is shown on the reverse of the United States penny. In his treatise Theory and Practise of Numismatic Design, Steve Crooks states that because the Lincoln Memorial is shown in sufficient detail to discern the statue of Lincoln on the reverse of the penny, Abraham Lincoln is the only person to be depicted on both the obverse and reverse of the same United States coin.
The Lincoln Memorial is on the back of the U.S. five dollar bill, which bears Lincoln's portrait on the front.
Other Lincoln memorials in Washington, D.C.
The Lincoln Memorial was preceded by three earlier remarkable memorials to Lincoln in the capital.
The first Lincoln statue in the US, in front of what was the first City Hall (D street) was unveiled on April 15, 1868, the third anniversary of Lincoln's death, by his successor, Andrew Johnson. Lot Flannery, the Irish sculptor, claimed he knew Lincoln and was present at the theatre when Lincoln was assassinated. The memorial was meant not only to commemorate Lincoln but remind the public of his authorization of up to $1 million to pay loyal D.C.
A Lincoln statue was dedicated inside the Rotunda of the United States Capitol on January 25, 1871, in the presence of Ulysses S.
The Emancipation Memorial (also known as "Freedom's Memorial") (1876) in Lincoln Park on Capitol Hill portrays a kneeling man representing the last man captured under the Fugitive Slave Law, who snaps slavery's chains as Lincoln proffers the Emancipation Proclamation.
Other memorials to Lincoln
There is a statue to Lincoln located in London's Parliament Square. It is a replica of the statue created by Augustus Saint-Gaudens for the dedication of Lincoln Park in Chicago.
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