Lincoln Memorial Cornerstone Laid: A Monument to Freedom Begins
The first stone of the Lincoln Memorial went down in 1914. Lincoln had been dead 49 years. Congress had been arguing about the memorial for 47 of them. They couldn't agree on location, design, or whether Lincoln even deserved one — some Southern congressmen voted against it. The architect, Henry Bacon, designed it to look like a Greek temple because he thought Lincoln was that important. It took eight more years to finish. When they dedicated it in 1922, the crowd was segregated. Black attendees, including the keynote speaker, sat in a roped-off section. Lincoln would've hated that.
February 12, 1914
112 years ago
Key Figures & Places
What Else Happened on February 12
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