HISTORY61 - Three Washington D.C. Presidential Memorials

I first visited Washington D.C. 70 years ago as a youngster, and have returned several times since on business or as a tourist.   Three monuments to past U.S. presidents have always stood out (pun not intended) to me:  the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Jefferson Memorial.  My brother Al recently pointed out to me some little-known facts about these monuments, so I decided to investigate and write about the monuments’ history.

 

This aerial view of part of Washington D.C. shows the Washington Monument at top left center, the Lincoln Memorial in center foreground, and the Jefferson Memorial at the top right.

I’ll discuss each of these monuments in the order they were completed:  Washington Monument (1884), Lincoln Memorial (1922), and the Jefferson Memorial (1943).  For each presidential monument, I will start with a very short snapshot of the namesake’s presidential biography and an introduction to the monument.  Then I’ll discuss the history of each monument, including its design and construction, exterior and interior features where applicable, and appropriate post-dedication history.  For the Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials, I will also discuss the history of the internal statues of Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson.

My principal sources include “National Capital’s Presidential Memorials in 360 Degrees,” “Frequently Asked Questions - Washington Monument,” “Construction of the Lincoln Memorial,” and “Thomas Jefferson Memorial Construction,” nps.gov; “Washington Monument,” “Lincoln Memorial,” “Jefferson Memorial,” “Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool,” and “Tidal Basin,” Wikipedia; “The Washington Monument is Completed,” “5 Things You Might Not Know about the Washington Monument,” and “10 Things You May Not Know About the Lincoln Memorial,” history.com; “Rediscovering an American Icon - Houdon’s Washington,” research.colonialwiliamsburg.org; “Lincoln Memorial Design and Construction,” usace.army.com; “10 Fun Facts About the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool,” washingtondcmetroarea.blogspon.com; “Jefferson Memorial,” newworldencyclopedia.org;; “2-year Jefferson Memorial renovation project begins,” wtop.com; and numerous other online sources.

Introduction

There are currently seven monuments or memorials to past U.S. presidents in Washington DC.  Besides Washington, Lincoln, and Jefferson, there are memorials to Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Lyndon Baines Johnson.  (I may cover these in a future blog.)

The map of Washington D.C. below highlights the location of the Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, and the Jefferson Memorial.  The Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial are on the National Mall, with the Reflecting Pool between them.  The Jefferson Memorial is located on the southern shore of the Tidal Basin.

 

Map of Washington D.C. showing the location of the Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, and Jefferson Memorial.  North is up.

Washington Monument

George Washington (February 22, 1732 - December 14, 1799) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father, who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797.  Appointed by the Continental Congress as commander of the Continental Army, Washington led the Patriot forces to victory in the American Revolutionary War, and served as the president of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, which created the Constitution of the United States and the American federal government.  Washington has been called the "Father of the Nation" for his manifold leadership in the formative days of the country.

The Washington Monument, completed in 1884, is a hollow Egyptian-style obelisk (a tall, four-sided, narrow tapering monument which ends in a pyramid) located in the National Mall in Washington, D.C., almost due east of the Reflecting Pool and the Lincoln Memorial. The structure was completed in two phases of construction, one private (1848-1854) and one public (1876-1884).  The monument, made of marble, granite, and bluestone gneiss, is both the world's tallest predominantly stone structure, and the world's tallest obelisk, standing 555 feet 5-1/8 inches tall.   There are more than 36,000 stone blocks in the monument.  The above-ground portion of the monument is estimated to weigh 80,000 tons; including the foundation, the structure weighs an estimated 100,000 tons.  The interior is occupied by 50 flights of iron stairs, with 897 steps, that spiral up the walls, with an elevator in the center.  Fifty American flags fly on a large circle of poles centered on the monument’s base.

The Washington Monument today.

 

Design. Primarily because of political squabbling, it wasn’t until 34 years after George Washington’s death, that anyone really did anything about a monument to Washington in the young nation’s new capital.  In 1833, a small group of people, unhappy that a proper memorial to the president had not yet been produced, founded the Washington National Monument Society, a private organization, formed to fund and build a monument to the first president that would be "unparalleled in the world." 

The Society solicited donations and designs for a decade, settling on a design by Robert Mills in 1845.  Mills' design called for a circular building 250 feet in diameter (with 30 100-foot-columns) from which sprang a four-sided obelisk 500 feet high, for a total elevation of 600 feet.  The design was audacious, ambitious, and expensive, portending numerous construction complications.  On April 11, 1848, the society decided, due to a lack of funds, to build only a simple plain obelisk.

The original design for the Washington Monument was audacious, ambitious, and expensive.

 

Construction.  Construction began on the Washington Monument in 1848.  Builders commenced work on the underground blue gneiss foundation.  With the substructure completed, the builders then proceeded to the above-ground marble structure, 55 feet, 1.5 inches square at the base, using a system of pulleys, block and tackle systems, and a mounted derrick to hoist and place the stones, inching the structure skyward.  By 1854, the monument had reached a height of 156 feet above ground, but a turn of events stalled construction.

The Washington Monument in 1860.  Construction stopped in 1854, and would not resume until 1876.

 

Architect Robert Mills died in 1855.  Private funds had dried up.  Congressional attempts to support the Washington National Monument Society failed as attentions turned toward the country’s growing sectional crises, then the Civil War (1861-1865).  For 22 years, the monument stood only partly finished, doing more to embarrass the nation than to honor its most important Founding Father. 

Only as the nation was rebuilding after the Civil War, did attention once again turn toward honoring the man who had once united the states in a common purpose.  By a joint resolution passed on July 5, 1876, Congress assumed the duty of funding and building the Washington Monument.  The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, led by Lt. Col. Thomas Lincoln Casey, was responsible for directing and completing the work.  For four years, the builders carefully beefed up the foundation to support the massive weight of the superstructure to come.  The monument's present foundation is 37 feet thick, consisting of half of its original bluestone gneiss rubble encased in concrete.

To continue building upward, the masons needed stone. The trouble was that the quarry near Baltimore used for the initial construction was no longer available after so many years.  Seeking a suitable match, the builders turned to a quarry in Massachusetts. However, problems quickly emerged with the quality and color of the stone, and the irregularity of deliveries.  After adding several courses of this stone from Massachusetts, still recognizable by the naked eye today as a brown-streaked beltline, one-third of the way up the monument, the builders turned to a third quarry near Baltimore that proved more favorable, and used that stone for the upper two-thirds of the structure. The stone never matched exactly, and the three slightly different colors from the three quarries are distinguishable today.

Casey reduced the thickness of the walls from thirteen feet to nine feet between the 150- and 160-foot levels, a transition visible on the interior of the completed Washington Monument.  Using a steam-powered elevator that could lift six tons of stone up to a movable 20-foot-tall iron frame replete with a boom and block and tackle systems for setting the stones, the masons inched their way up the monument, building twenty feet of stone and mortar, then moving the iron framework up twenty feet, repeating as they went upward.

Five hundred feet above the ground, the builders began angling the monument column inward, constructing a 55-foot, 300-ton marble pyramid at the top of the monument, with eight observation windows, two per side.  On December 6, 1884, a 6.25-pound aluminum tip, part of the lightning protection system, was brought out through one of the windows, hoisted to the scaffolding at the dizzying top of the monument, and set in place.  The construction of the Washington Monument was complete.

The Washington Monument was dedicated on February 21, 1885.  After the completion of the iron staircase (about a 20-minute walk-up) in the monument's interior, the Washington Monument was first accessible to the public in 1886, closed much of 1887 until it could be better protected from vandals, and reopened in 1888 with a public elevator. 

Visitors making the ascent could view commemorative stones inset in the walls from various individuals, civic groups, cities, states, and countries from around the world, the tokens of appreciation of Washington's admirers and, in many cases, the donors that contributed to the construction of the Monument in its privately-financed phase. Today there are 193 of these commemorative stones.

The original steam-driven elevator, with a trip time of 10-12 minutes to the top of the monument, was replaced with an electric elevator in 1901.  The current electric elevator makes the ascent in about 70 seconds.

The elevator provides transportation to an internal observation deck at the 500-foot level, the start of the pyramid structure. The observation deck provides views out the two windows on the north, south, east, and west sides of the pyramid.  A small museum is located on the 490-foot level.

Post-Construction History.  The National Park Service was given jurisdiction over the Washington Monument in 1933, and the first restoration of the structure began as a Depression Era public works project in 1934. 

The inside stairs of the Washington Monument were closed for walking up in 1971, and then closed altogether - up and down - in 1976.  There were occasional exceptions, such as special ranger-led tours that took visitors past the carved memorial stones inside the shaft.

On December 8, 1982, a 66-year-old Navy veteran, Norman Mayer, drove his van to the base of the monument and threatened to blow up the structure with 1,000 pounds of dynamite he claimed to have inside his vehicle.  A group of tourists was trapped inside the monument for several hours before Mayer, who was trying to draw attention to his stance against nuclear weapons, let them leave. Meanwhile, thousands of workers from nearby buildings were evacuated, streets were shut down, and air traffic in the area was diverted. After an approximately 10-hour standoff with law enforcement officials, Mayer attempted to drive away, but was shot and killed by police.  When authorities later searched his van, no explosives were found.

In 1992, a life-size bronze statue of George Washington was emplaced in the western alcove of the ground floor of the monument, near the elevator.  (The statue is a copy [one of many] of the famous statue of George Washington sculpted by France’s Jean-Antoine Houdon between 1785 and 1791, on a commission from Virginia’s legislature.  The original statue stands today in the rotunda of the Capitol in Richmond.)

Bronze statue of George Washington, in the western alcove of the ground floor of the Washington Monument.

 

Additional restoration work occurred in 1964, from 1998-2001, in 2011-2014 (to repair damage following an earthquake) and from 2016-2019 for modernization of the elevator.

Since reopening in 2019, the Washington Monument was closed several more times – during the COVID-19 Pandemic in 2020 and 2021; during the President Joe Biden’s inauguration in January 2021, after the storming of the United States Capitol, and perceived threats to the monument; and for two weeks in August, due to lightning strikes which damaged some electrical systems.

The Washington Monument was added to the National Register of Historic Places on October 15, 1966.  Today, more than 800,000 people visit the Washington Monument each year.

Lincoln Memorial

Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 - April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer and statesman, who served as the 16^th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865.  Lincoln led the nation through the American Civil War and succeeded in preserving the Union, abolishing slavery, bolstering the federal government, and modernizing the U.S. economy.

The Lincoln Memorial, completed in 1922, is on the western end of the National Mall in Washington, D.C., across from the Washington Monument.  The building is in the form of a classic Greek temple, featuring Yule marble, is 99 feet tall, and covers 27,000 square feet.  The memorial contains a large seated sculpture of Abraham Lincoln, and inscriptions of two well-known speeches by Lincoln, the Gettysburg Address and his second inaugural address.  Since opening in 1922, the Lincoln Memorial has been one of America’s most iconic landmarks and is the most visited tourist site in Washington, D.C.  It has been both a backdrop in memorable movie scenes and center stage for seminal moments in American civil rights history, such as the 1939 concert by opera singer Marian Anderson and the 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech by Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Lincoln Memorial is managed by the National Park Service and was added the National Register of Historic Places on October 15, 1966.  Today, about eight million people visit the Lincoln Memorial each year.

 

The Lincoln Memorial today.

Design and Construction.  Although calls to erect a national monument in Lincoln’s honor started almost immediately after his assassination, the project dragged on for decades.  After the U.S. Congress in 1867 authorized construction of a monument on the U.S. Capitol grounds, sculptor Clark Mills designed a memorial tiered like a wedding cake that was cluttered with dozens of statues and topped by a bronzed depiction of Lincoln signing the Emancipation Proclamation. Fundraising, however, sputtered during Reconstruction, and the project fizzled. 

Not until 1911 did Congress approve $2 million to build a national memorial.  After three years of contentious debate over its design and location, construction began in March 1914 and was completed in 1922, with the dedication on May 30, 1922.    

Designed by architect Henry Bacon, on a plan similar to that of the Parthenon in Athens, Greece, the structure was constructed on reclaimed land in West Potomac Park, overlooking the Potomac River, and surrounded by open land.

Exterior.  The exterior of the Lincoln Memorial echoes a classic Greek temple and features Yule marble quarried from Colorado.  The structure measures 189.7 by 118.5 feet and is 99 feet tall.

The memorial includes 36 columns, one for each state in the Union at the time of Lincoln’s death in 1865; each column stands 44 feet high, with a base diameter of 7.5 feet. The names of the 48 contiguous states are listed above the columns on the ceiling structure, and the dates of their admission to the Union are engraved in Roman numerals.  Because Hawaii and Alaska attained statehood several decades after the Lincoln Memorial was finished, their names are inscribed on a plaque located on the front steps.

The columns, like the exterior walls, are inclined slightly toward the building's interior. This is to compensate for perspective distortions which would otherwise make the memorial appear to bulge out at the top when compared with the bottom, a common feature of ancient Greek architecture.

The memorial is anchored in a concrete foundation, 44 to 66 feet in depth, encompassed by a 187-by-257-foot rectangular granite retaining wall measuring 14 feet in height.

Leading up to the memorial, on the east side, are the main steps.  Beginning at the edge of the Reflecting Pool (see below), the steps rise to the Lincoln Memorial circular roadway surrounding the edifice, then to the main portal.   There are a total of 87 steps.

Interior.  The Lincoln Memorial's interior is divided into three chambers by two rows of four columns, each 50 feet tall and 5.5 feet across at their base. 

The Lincoln Memorial during construction. 

 

Lying between the north and south chambers inside the open-air memorial, is the central hall, which contains the Lincoln statue (see below), a large solitary figure of Abraham Lincoln sitting in contemplation.  Its sculptor, Daniel Chester French, supervised the six Piccirilli brothers in its construction, and it took four years to complete.

The north and south chambers display carved inscriptions of Lincoln's second inaugural address and his Gettysburg Address.  The inscriptions and adjoining ornamentation are by Evelyn Beatrice Longman. Each inscription is surmounted by a 60-by-12-foot mural by Jules Guerin, portraying principles seen as evident in Lincoln's life: Freedom, Liberty, Morality, Justice, and the Law on the south wall; Unity, Fraternity, and Charity on the north.  Cypress trees, representing Eternity, are in the murals' backgrounds.

The ceiling consists of bronze girders ornamented with laurel and oak leaves.  Between these are panels of Alabama marble, saturated with paraffin to increase translucency.  But feeling that the statue required even more light, Chief architect Bacon and sculptor French designed metal slats for the ceiling to conceal floodlights, which could be modulated to supplement the natural light; this modification was installed in 1929. The one major alteration since was the addition of an elevator for the disabled in the 1970s.

Lincoln Statue.  Sculptor French tasked the six Piccirilli brothers with chiseling Lincoln’s likeness out of 28 blocks of white Georgia marble.  Already renowned for carving the New York Stock Exchange’s frontispiece and the Washington Square Arch in Greenwich Village, the Piccirilli brothers carved the slabs in their sprawling workshop in the New York City borough of the Bronx.  When finished, the enormous blocks were transported to the memorial and delicately assembled like puzzle pieces with nearly invisible seams. 

The statue of Abraham Lincoln during assembly in the Lincoln Memorial.

 

The completed statue is 19 feet high, 19 feet wide, and weighs 120 tons.  The statue is set on an oblong pedestal of Tennessee marble 10 feet high, 16 feet wide, and 17 feet deep.  Directly beneath this lies a platform of Tennessee marble about 34.5 feet long, 28 feet wide, and 6.5 inches high.  The total weight of the statue and pedestal is 175 tons.

Sculptor French gave considerable thought to how to position the president’s hands.  “It has always seemed to me that the hands in portraiture were only secondary to the face in expression, and I depend quite as much upon them in showing character in force,” the sculptor wrote.  French depicted Lincoln with his left hand clenched to symbolize his determination to see the Civil War through to its conclusion, and his right hand open to represent a desire to welcome the vanquished Confederacy back into the Union without vengeance.

On the wall behind Lincoln’s statue, above Lincoln's head, is engraved an epitaph of Lincoln by Royal Cortissoz: “IN THIS TEMPLE AS IN THE HEARTS OF THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM HE SAVED THE UNION, THE MEMORY OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN IS ENSHRINED FOREVER.”

The completed statue of Abraham Lincoln.

  

Undercroft.  Below the Lincoln Memorial is a huge three-story undercroft (basement), containing 122 enormous concrete pillars that anchor the massive monument to bedrock.  Due to water seeping through the calcium carbonate within the marble, over time stalactites and stalagmites formed within it.  During construction, graffiti was scrawled on it by workers.  During the 1970s and 1980s, there were regular tours of the undercroft. The tours stopped abruptly in 1989 after a visitor noticed asbestos.

The three-story undercroft below the Lincoln Memorial.

 

For the memorial's centennial in 2022, following a rehabilitation project funded by David Rubenstein, 15,000 square feet of public space in the undercroft was reopened to visitors to offer state-of-the-art educational exhibits and classrooms.  New interpretative exhibits and media will advance visitor understanding of Abraham Lincoln, the memorial's construction, and urban planning in the nation's capital.  In addition, visitors will now be able to view the foundations that anchor the memorial to the bedrock, and see the graffiti of the construction workers who built it in the early 20^th century.

Accidents and Vandalism.  The Lincoln Memorial has suffered one accident and several acts of vandalism.  On September 3, 1942, during World War II, military anti-aircraft personnel accidentally fired a .50 caliber machine gun at the Memorial.  Three bullets struck the Memorial, damaging the marble cornice above the entrance, gauging out a piece about the size of a baseball. 

In September 1962, amid the civil rights movement, vandals painted the words "n----- lover" in one-foot-high pink letters on the rear wall.

On July 26, 2013, the Lincoln statue's base and legs were splashed with green paint.   A 58-year-old Chinese national was arrested and admitted to a psychiatric facility; she was later found to be incompetent to stand trial.

On February 27, 2017, graffiti written in permanent marker, saying "Jackie shot JFK", "blood test is a lie," as well as other claims was found on the Lincoln Memorial and several other Washington D.C. edifices.  Authorities believed that a single person was responsible for the vandalism.

On August 15, 2017, Reuters reported that "F--- law" was spray painted in red on one of the columns.  The initials "M+E" were etched on the same pillar.

On September 18, 2017, Nurtilek Bakirov from Kyrgyzstan, was arrested when a police officer saw him vandalizing the memorial at around 1:00 PM EDT.  Bakirov used a penny to carve the letters "HYPT MAEK" in what appeared to be Cyrillic letters into the fifth pillar on the north side.

On May 30, 2020, during nationwide protests in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, vandals spray-painted "Yall not tired yet?" beside the steps leading to the memorial.

Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.  The Reflecting Pool was originally part of the Lincoln Memoria project.  Designed by Lincoln Memorial architect Henry Bacon, the Reflecting Pool construction started on December 16, 1920 and was completed on January 5, 1923, after the Lincoln Memorial was dedicated.

Stretching 2,030 feet from end to end, and 167 feet wide, the reflecting pool lies between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial.  The pool was originally filled with potable water from the city.   But, built on marshland, the pool gradually sank, leaking into the surrounding land. 

In 2010-2012, the pool was reconstructed.  The bottom of the pool is now shaped like a V with a trench running the length of the pool.  It is 18 inches deep at the edges, and slopes down to be 30 inches deep in the middle.  It now holds nearly seven million gallons of water and utilizes a sustainable circulation system, pulling water from the nearby Tidal Basin.  Paved walking paths were added to the north and south sides of the pool to replace worn grass and to prevent further erosion.  

Within weeks of the pool's reopening in 2012, it had to be drained and cleaned due to algae in the pool.  The Reflecting Pool was completely drained again in June 2017 to control a parasitical outbreak.

In 2013, construction on the National World War II Memorial damaged the eastern end of the Reflecting Pool.  Workers closed the eastern 30 feet of the pool in August 2015 to repair the basin, work that was completed in the summer of 2016.

Jefferson Memorial

Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 - July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Father, who served as the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809.  He was previously the second vice president under John Adams and the first United States secretary of state under George Washington.  The principal author of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson was a proponent of democracy and individual rights.  As president, he promoted a western expansionist policy with the Louisiana Purchase which doubled the nation's land area.

The Jefferson Memorial, completed in 1943, is a neoclassical building, situated in West Potomac Park, adjacent to the National Mall, on the southern shore of the Tidal Basin, an artificial inlet of the Potomac River.  The memorial is constructed of white Imperial Danby marble and rests on a series of granite and marble-stepped terraces.  The building covers an area of almost 80,000 square feet, and contains a central dome reaching a height of 128 feet.  A bronze statue of Thomas Jefferson was added in 1947.

The national memorial is managed by the National Park Service and was added to the National Register of Historic Places on October 15, 1966. 

Although the Jefferson Memorial is geographically removed from other buildings and monuments in Washington, D.C., as well as from the National Mall and the Washington Metro, it plays host to many events and ceremonies each year, including memorial exercises, the Easter Sunrise Service, and the annual National Cherry Blossom Festival.   Today, over three million people visit the Jefferson Memorial annually.

The Jefferson Memorial today.

 

Design and Construction.  In 1934, President Franklin Roosevelt, an admirer of Thomas Jefferson, inquired to the Commission of Fine Arts about the possibility of erecting a memorial to Jefferson.  Later the same year, Congressman John J. Boylan followed FDR's lead and urged Congress to create the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Commission.  Boylan was appointed the Commission's first chairman, and Congress eventually appropriated $3 million for a memorial to Jefferson.

The Commission chose John Russell Pope as the architect in 1935.  Pope was also the architect of the National Archives Building and original (west) building of the National Gallery of Art.  The Commission chose a site on reclaimed land on the southern side of the Tidal Basin, directly south of the White House.

Pope designed a very large Roman-temple-like structure, to sit on a square platform, and to be flanked by two smaller, rectangular buildings with rows of columns.   Pope’s design was influenced by the Roman Pantheon and by Jefferson's own design for the rotunda at the University of Virginia.

Construction began on December 15, 1938 amid significant opposition.  The Commission of Fine Arts never actually approved any design for the memorial and even published a pamphlet in 1939 opposing both the design and site of the memorial.  Additionally, many Washingtonians opposed the site because many well-established elm and cherry trees, including rare stock donated by Japan in 1912, were targeted for removal under the memorial's original plan.  Opposition to the site included women protestors chaining themselves to cherry trees.

Pope’s design of the memorial was opposed by many modernist architects, including Frank Lloyd Wright, who objected to its Classical design.

At the urging of President Franklin Roosevelt, however, construction continued amid the opposition, and despite the country’s entrance into World War II in 1941.

Meanwhile, Chief Architect John Russel Pope had died on August 27, 1937 and his surviving partners, Daniel P. Higgins and Otto R. Eggers, took over as architects of the memorial.  The design was modified at the request of the Commission of Fine Arts to a more conservative design.

The resulting neoclassical design was for an open-air circular building, with a shallow circular dome supported by 26 columns, one column for each of the states in the Union when Jefferson died.   An additional 12 columns support the north portico (porch), and four columns stand in each of the memorial’s four openings to the outside, for a total of 54 columns.

The memorial was constructed with Vermont Danby Imperial marble for the exterior walls and columns and Tennessee pink marble was used for the interior floor.  Georgian white marble was used for the interior wall panels, and Missouri gray marble for the pedestal of the statue.  Indiana limestone was used in construction of the ceiling. 

The negative press toward the memorial caused President Roosevelt considerable dismay, but it ultimately helped limit the projected footprint of the new memorial, so that it would peacefully co-exist with the spring-blooming cherry orchard flanking and abutting it.

The Jefferson Memorial under construction.

 

The memorial was dedicated on April 13, 1943, the 200th anniversary of Jefferson’s birth.

In 1939, the Memorial Commission had hosted a competition to select a sculptor for the planned bronze statue of Thomas Jefferson in the center of the memorial.  Rudulph Evans was chosen as the main sculptor.  During World War II, the demand for bronze was too high to justify using the metal for a statue, so as a temporary measure, the sculptors had to work with plaster, which was then painted to mimic bronze.  The completed bronze statue was added to the memorial, following World War II in 1947

Installing the bronze statue of Thomas Jefferson in the Jefferson Memorial.

 

Landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. designed the memorial landscape.  The Olmsted planting plan installed at the time of construction featured a simple design within a circular driveway; primarily evergreen trees, with limited flowering trees and shrubs. White pines were added and some other plantings took place before the dedication in 1943.

Exterior.  The Jefferson Memorial is situated on 19.2 acres of land, is almost 80,000 square feet in area, with a diameter of approximately 165 feet.  The dome is four feet thick, and brings the total height of the memorial to 129 feet.  The memorial weighs 32,000 tons.  A flight of granite and marble stairs lead up from the Tidal Basin to the memorial.

The front of memorial features a sculpture by Adolph Alexander Weinman depicting the five members of the drafting committee of the Declaration of Independence.  Besides Jefferson, the members of this committee were John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston. 

Interior.  In the center of the domed, marble-lined interior is the 19-foot tall, 10,000-pound bronze figure of Jefferson sculpted by Rudolph Evans.  The statue stands on six-foot pedestal of black Minnesota granite.

Inscribed on the interior walls are excerpts from Jefferson’s writings - including the Declaration of Independence, the Statute for Religious Freedom, Notes on the State of Virginia, and several of his letters.  Most prominent are the words which are inscribed around the monument near the roof: "I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." This sentence is taken from a September 23, 1800 letter by Jefferson to Dr. Benjamin Rush.

The completed interior of the Jefferson Memorial.

 

1947 - Present Day.  First noted in 1965, land settlement issues surrounding the memorial had pushed the adjacent roadway and sidewalks up three feet.  In 1969, the Jefferson Memorial was closed to carry out a stabilization project which included installing concrete reinforcing struts to stop the settlement, reconstruction and regrading of the sidewalks and roadways, rebuilding of the terrace walk, and replanting of landscaping.

In 1970, the circular road around the memorial was cut off, and a multicolored aggregate and concrete plaza was added.

In 1993, restoration added the grassy, elevated terrace that rings the base of the memorial, returning the planting in the area back to the “as-built” design.

In 1994, the lower level of the memorial was rehabilitated to add exhibits, public restrooms, staff offices, and a bookstore.

In 2000, the entrance steps and plaza were rehabilitated.

On December 1, 2021, the National Park Service began a two-year renovation and restoration of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial.  The work includes a complete renovation of the lower-level exhibit area, which was installed in 1994. The new area will provide “more perspectives as it shares Thomas Jefferson’s multi-faceted story.”  The work will also improve accessibility, the park service said, with sloped pathways to the east and west of the front steps and a modernized elevator.  The project will also include replacing the paving on the lower terrace in front of the memorial, reconfiguring the lower-level restrooms and retail space, and upgrading the fire suppression and security systems.  The chamber and the statue of Jefferson remains open during the work. 

 

With the new knowledge gained about these three presidential monuments, Pat and are talking about traveling to Washington D.C. to (re) visit these three memorials.