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The Jefferson Memorial is a presidential memorial built in Washington, D.C. between 1939 and 1943 under the sponsorship of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Roosevelt thought that it was a suitable memorial to the Founding Fathers of the United States and to Thomas Jefferson, the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the founder of the Democratic-Republican Party.
The neoclassical building is situated in West Potomac Park on the shore of the Potomac River. It was designed by John Russell Pope and built by Philadelphia contractor John McShain. Construction began in 1939 and was completed in 1943.
The bronze statue of Jefferson was added in 1947. Pope made references to the Roman Pantheon whose designer was Apollodorus of Damascus, and to Jefferson's own design for the rotunda at the University of Virginia.
The Jefferson Memorial and the White House form one of the main anchor points in the area of the National Mall in D.C.
The Washington Monument was intended to be located at the intersection of the White House and the site for the Jefferson Memorial, but soft swampy ground required that it be situated to the east.
The national memorial is managed by the National Park Service of the Department of the Interior under its National Mall and Memorial Parks division.
In 2007, it was ranked fourth on the List of America's Favorite Architecture by the American Institute of Architects.
It became apparent that the site was well suited for another high-profile memorial since it sat directly south of the White House. By 1901 the Senate Park Commission, better known as the McMillan Commission, had proposed placing a Pantheon-like structure on the site hosting the statues of the illustrious men of the nation, or whether the memory of some individual shall be honored by a monument of the first rank may be left to the future; no action was ever taken by Congress on this issue.
More information: NPS
The completion of the Tidal Basin Inlet Bridge in 1908 helped to facilitate the recreational usage of East and West Potomac Parks. In 1918, large liquid-chlorine dispensers were installed under the bridge to treat the water and make the Tidal Basin, also known as Twining Lake, suitable for swimming.
The Tidal Basin Beach, on the site of the future Memorial, opened in May 1918 and operated as a Whites Only facility until 1925, when it was permanently closed to avoid the question of racial integration.
A design competition was held for a memorial to Theodore Roosevelt in 1925. The winning design was submitted by John Russell Pope and consisted of a half-circle memorial situated next to a circular basin. The plan was never funded by Congress and was not built.
The Memorial's chance came in 1934 when President Franklin Roosevelt, an admirer of Jefferson, in large part because of the book on Jefferson by his friend Claude G. Bowers, inquired to the Commission of Fine Arts about the possibility of erecting a memorial to Jefferson, including it in the plans for the Federal Triangle project, which was under construction at the time.
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. He prepared four different plans for the project, each on a different site. One was on the Anacostia River at the end of East Capitol Street; one at Lincoln Park; one on the south side of the National Mall across from the National Archives; and one situated on the Tidal Basin, directly south of the White House.
The Commission preferred the site on the Tidal Basin mainly because it was the most prominent site and because it completed the four-point plan called for by the McMillan Commission (Lincoln Memorial to the Capitol; White House to the Tidal Basin site). Pope designed a very large pantheon-like structure, to sit on a square platform, and to be flanked by two smaller, rectangular, colonnaded buildings.
The site of the monument is in West Potomac Park, in Washington, D.C., on the shore of the Potomac River Tidal Basin, and is enhanced with the massed planting of Japanese cherry trees, a gift from the people of Japan in 1912.
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.
More information: Washington, D.C.
Thomas Jefferson
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