May 30, 2017 Tuesday)
On this day in 1922, the Lincoln Memorial was dedicated by William H. Taft, Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Attendance at the event was 50,000. Construction started in 1914. The design by the New York architect Henry Bacon was based on a Greek temple with 36 Doric columns. Each column represents one state of the Union at the time of Lincoln’s death. When the memorial was completed in May 1922, the Union had expanded with 12 more states, so the names of the 48 states were carved on the outside of the memorial’s walls. After the admission of Alaska and Hawaii, a plaque was added with the names of the new states.
The memorial is often used as a gathering place for protests and political rallies. The most famous was the March of Washington in 1963, when Martin Luther King delivered his famous speech ‘I have a dream’ from the Lincoln Memorial.
Monuments regarding other presidents are located in Washington, D.C., such as the Washington Monument and the Jefferson Memorial. Statues and memorials are always being planned or added to those we have now.
A previous blog extolled the benefits of summer. You may want to add “Washington, D.C.” to the list of places you would like to visit this summer. If so, you need to plan on seeing all the monuments, statues and memorials. It’s great to be an American. What a wonderful privilege.