Lincoln Memorial

The Lincoln Memorial honors Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth president, who led the United States through the Civil War and the end of slavery. Modeled on a Greek temple and anchoring the west end of the National Mall, it houses a colossal seated statue of Lincoln gazing out over the Reflecting Pool toward the Washington Monument and Capitol.

The memorial has also become one of the nation's great stages for the cause of equality — most famously in 1963, when Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech from its steps during the March on Washington. Lincoln's own words, the Gettysburg Address and Second Inaugural, are carved on its interior walls.

Proposals to memorialize Lincoln began soon after his assassination in 1865, but the design took decades to settle. Construction on architect Henry Bacon's Greek Doric temple began in 1914 on reclaimed land at the west end of the National Mall.

At its heart is a 19-foot-tall seated statue of Lincoln carved from Georgia marble by sculptor Daniel Chester French. The exterior is ringed by 36 Doric columns, one for each state in the Union at the time of Lincoln's death, with the states' names carved above. The memorial was dedicated in 1922.

The memorial soon took on meaning beyond Lincoln himself. In 1939, the contralto Marian Anderson performed on its steps after being barred from a segregated concert hall, and in 1963 Martin Luther King Jr. delivered “I Have a Dream” there before a quarter-million people. It remains a focal point for demonstrations and remembrance, cared for by the National Park Service.