Lincoln Memorial — monument
Image by MarkThomas from Pixabay

Lincoln Memorial

  • Elevation11 m
  • 2 min read
  • 38.889° N 77.050° W

Interesting facts

  • The statue was first planned at 10 feet but enlarged to 19 so it would not be dwarfed by the hall; standing, Lincoln would be about 28 feet tall.
  • The outer columns and walls lean slightly inward, an ancient Greek trick that keeps the building from appearing to bulge at the top.
  • The ceiling panels are thin Alabama marble soaked in paraffin to make them translucent, and hidden floodlights were added in 1929.
  • Jules Guérin mixed kerosene and wax into the paint of his murals to protect them in a hall open to the weather.
  • Lincoln's only surviving son, Robert Todd Lincoln, then 78, attended the 1922 dedication, where Black guests were forced into a segregated section.
  • Marian Anderson's 1939 Easter concert on the steps, arranged with Eleanor Roosevelt's support, drew 75,000 people and a nationwide radio audience.
  • The spot where Martin Luther King Jr. stood in 1963, on a landing eighteen steps below the statue, was engraved in 2003.
  • Water seeping through the marble has grown stalactites and stalagmites in the cavernous undercroft beneath the memorial, alongside graffiti left by its builders.
  • An earlier memorial planned in 1867 called for a 70-foot structure with 37 colossal statues, but the subscription never raised enough money.
  • The memorial appeared on the back of the one-cent coin from 1959 to 2008 and has been on the five-dollar bill since 1929.

Why it is worth it

The Lincoln Memorial closes the western end of the National Mall like the temple at the end of a sacred way. The architect Henry Bacon gave it the form of a Greek Doric temple in white Yule marble from Colorado, ringed by 36 fluted columns, one for each state of the Union at the time of Lincoln's death, with the names of the 48 states of 1922 carved above. Critics at the time thought a temple too grand for so plain a man; the building was dedicated on 30 May 1922, and in 2007 American architects ranked it seventh among the country's favourite buildings.

Inside, in a hall open to the air, sits Daniel Chester French's colossal Lincoln, carved from Georgia white marble by the six Piccirilli brothers over four years and shipped in 28 pieces. The president sits in contemplation, gazing east along the Reflecting Pool towards the Washington Monument and the Capitol. The flanking chambers carry the words of the Gettysburg Address and the Second Inaugural Address, below murals by Jules Guérin, and above the statue runs the epitaph by Royal Cortissoz. It has been suggested, though never proved, that French shaped Lincoln's hands to spell his initials in sign language.

The memorial became a stage for American history. In 1939, after she was refused a concert hall, the contralto Marian Anderson sang on its steps, and on 28 August 1963 Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech here at the end of the March on Washington, a hundred years after the Emancipation Proclamation. The memorial is administered by the National Park Service and draws more than seven million visitors a year; it is at its most moving early in the morning or after dark.

Getting there

The memorial stands at the west end of the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on the bank of the Potomac, about 1.4 km from the city centre. Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA) is about 4 km to the south.

Plan your visit

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Nearby places

On these lists

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From the encyclopaedia

The Lincoln Memorial is a U.S. national memorial honoring Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, located on the western end of the National Mall of Washington, D.C. The memorial is built in a neoclassical style in the form of a classical temple. The memorial's architect was Henry Bacon. In 1920, Daniel Chester French designed the large interior Abraham Lincoln statue, which was carved in marble by the Piccirilli brothers. Jules Guérin painted the interior murals, and the epitaph above the statue was written by Royal Cortissoz. Dedicated on May 30, 1922, it is one of several memorials built to honor an American president. It has been a major tourist attraction since its opening, and over the years, has occasionally been used as a symbolic center focused on race relations and civil rights.

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38.88928, -77.05014per Wikidata