The Capitol Dome

THE CAPITOL DOME 30 surate to his importance to the history of the country. In the 1890s, the dominant theme was to stress that which Americans had in common. Lincoln had become by now a less partisan figure idealized as a philosopher-statesman. With the Repub- lican Party firmly in control following President William McKinley's 1896 election and with a strong presidency under eodore Roosevelt, honoring Lincoln would be as the strong Civil War president, a heroic figure. e time of the centennial of Lincoln's birth in 1909 saw an even greater deification, but now as a titanic but humane "Man of the People." e McMillan Commission offered the opportunity to cre- ate a memorial at the west end of the expanded Mall, commen- surate with and directly in line with that of the Washington Monument and the U.S. Capitol. At the beginning, Charles McKim had visualized a standing figure of Lincoln silhouetted in front of a temple with a Doric columned portico in the cen- ter of a "rond-point." is memorial, connecting the North and South via the Memorial Bridge, could be compared with the Arc de Triomphe that crowns the Place d'Etoile in Paris. e Lincoln Memorial (fig. 6) as actually realized is a Greek temple reminiscent of the Parthenon but without its pedi- ments. e statue within is visible from one of the sides of the building rather than from the front as in the Parthenon. e Fig. 5. Abraham Lincoln, marble statue by Lot Flannery, 1868, District of Columbia Court of Appeals (formerly District of Columbia City Hall). Fig. 6. Lincoln Memorial, Henry Bacon architect, Daniel Chester French sculptor, west end of National Mall, Washington, D.C. PHOTO GR APHY BY C AROL M. HIGHSMI T H PHOTO GR APH BY MAT T HE W G. BIS ANZ

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