Jefferson Memorial

Jefferson Memorial
The Jefferson Memorial
Coordinates: 38 ° 52 '52 "  N , 77 ° 2' 12"  W.
Location:	District of Columbia , United States
Surface:	74 m² km²
Founding:	April 13, 1943
Visitors:	2,312,726 (2005)

The Jefferson Memorial in Washington, DC is a memorial in honor of the third US President, Thomas Jefferson . It was built from 1939 to 1943.

description

In the first third of the 20th century, Washington outgrew its existence as an almost provincial administrative capital and became an imperial metropolis , as designed by Pierre L'Enfant in 1792. The United States of America was about to become the leading world power and equipped its capital with appropriate monuments. At the beginning of the 1930s, there was the Lincoln Memorial, built in 1915–1922 to commemorate Abraham Lincoln, and the Washington Monument, begun in 1848 and completed in 1884, in honor of George Washington . At the suggestion of Franklin D. Roosevelt (President of the United States 1933–1945), discussions began to build a monument for Thomas Jefferson as well. Jefferson's Enlightenment ideals of freedom, equality, and progress drove Roosevelt to drive America out of the social and economic turmoil of the Great Depression towards new self-confidence and more social politics. As a result, the author of the American Declaration of Independence and his ideals of freedom should be memorialized.

On the basis of this initiative, the Congress passed a corresponding resolution in 1934. The architect John Russell Pope (1874–1937), already the designer of the west wing of the National Gallery of Art , was commissioned to plan the monument. The foundation stone was laid in 1939 and opened in 1943. Inside there is a 6.5 meter high and 4.5 tonne bronze statue of Thomas Jefferson, which was added about four years after the opening.

The style has been criticized by supporters of modernism as being too conservative. On the other hand, the building, reminiscent of the Roman pantheon and the rotunda of the University of Virginia planned by Jefferson himself, gained great popularity. In 2007, for example, it reached fourth place on the List of America's Favorite Architecture published by the American Institute of Architects . The entire building is surrounded by West Potomac Park , which is best known for its Japanese ornamental cherries. Fifty Washington women chained themselves to one of these trees in November 1938 in protest against the announced chopping of cherry trees for the construction of the Jefferson Memorial in what became known as the Cherry Tree Rebellion .

Inscriptions

Excerpts from various speeches and writings by Jefferson are engraved on the walls. The extracts are from the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom (1777), a letter to James Madison dated August 28, 1789, the text A Summary View of the Rights of British America , Notes on the State of Virginia , from Jefferson's autobiography, a letter dated August 13, 1790 to George Wythe , a letter dated January 4, 1786 to George Washington , and a letter dated July 12, 1816 to Samuel Kercheval. The best known is probably the extract from the Declaration of Independence (1776):

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men. We ... solemnly publish and declare, that these colonies are and of right ought to be free and independent states ... And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.

We take these truths for granted that all human beings are created equal, that they are endowed with certain inalienable rights by their Creator, including the [right to] life, freedom and the pursuit of happiness, that these rights are the reason to guarantee why governments were instituted by humans. We ... publish and solemnly declare that these colonies should be free and independent states ... And in support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we pledge our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor to one another.

The Jefferson Memorial inside

literature

• Steven McLeod Bedford: John Russell Pope: Architect of Empire. Rizzoli, New York 1998.
• Gordon Chapell: East and West Potomac Parks: A History. United States Department of the Interior, Denver, CO 1973.
• Sue A. Kohler: The Commission of Fine Arts: A Brief History 1910–1995. The Commission of Fine Arts, Washington 1996.
• John W. Reps: Monumental Washington: The Planning and Development of the Capital Center. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ 1967.
• Thomas Jefferson Memorial Commission: Report of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Commission. Washington, DC 1937.
• Thomas Jefferson Memorial Commission: Report of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Commission. Washington, DC 1938.
• Tescia Ann Yonkers: Shrine of Freedom. Silver Hill, MD 1983.

Web links

Commons : Jefferson Memorial  - Album containing pictures, videos and audio files

• National Park Service: Jefferson Memorial (official site; English)
• The Jefferson Memorial as a 3D model in SketchUp's 3D warehouse
• Peter R. Penczer: Brief historical outline. ( Memento from August 9, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) In: DCHistory.com (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ America's Favorite Architecture. ( Memento of the original from July 29, 2012 on WebCite ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: American Institute of Architecture . 
2. ↑ Cherry Tree Rebellion. In: NPS.gov (English).
3. ^ ^{A b c d} Quotations on the Jefferson Memorial . In: Thomas Jefferson's Monticello . monticello.org. Retrieved August 11, 2012.
4. ↑ Thomas Jefferson: TO JAMES MADISON 1, Aug. 28, 1789 . In: Paul Leicester Ford (Ed.): The Works of Thomas Jefferson , Federal. 5th edition, Volume 5, GP Putnam's Sons, New York, London 1904-5 (accessed August 11, 2012).
5. ↑ Thomas Jefferson: Andrew A. Lipscomb and Albert Ellery Bergh (Eds.): The Writings of Thomas Jefferson , Volume 1 1905, p. 211.
6. ^ Paul Leicester Ford (ed.): The Works of Thomas Jefferson , Volume 4, Notes On Virginia, QUERY XVIII, The particular customs and manners that may happen to be received in that State ?. GP Putnam's Sons, New York and London 1904-5, pp. 82-84 (accessed August 11, 2012).
7. ↑ Thomas Jefferson: AUTOBIOGRAPHY 1743-1790 . In: Paul Leicester Ford (Ed.): The Works of Thomas Jefferson , Federal. Edition, Volume 1, GP Putnam's Sons, New York and London 1904-5, p. 77 (accessed August 11, 2012).
8. ↑ Thomas Jefferson: “A CRUSADE AGAINST IGNORANCE”. To George Wythe Paris, August 13, 1786 . Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library. Archived from the original on December 15, 2012. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved August 11, 2012. 
9. ↑ Thomas Jefferson: Thomas Jefferson letter to George Washington, January 4, 1786 . FamilyTales. Retrieved August 11, 2012.
10. ^ Jefferson, Thomas Teaching American History.