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Admission: Free
Monument Hours: Open 8:00 AM - Midnight
Building the Memorial
Jefferson's importance as one of the great figures in the Nation's history
demanded a memorial site of prominence in the Capital City equal to that
occupied by the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial. Placing the
Jefferson Memorial on the Tidal Basin, directly south of the White House
achieved this, for these monuments, the White House, and the Capitol
completed the east-west axis and its complementary north-south alignment,
creating a monumental heart for the city. In the preparation of the plans
for the memorial, the architect, John Russell Pope, was clearly influenced
by Jefferson's taste as expressed in his writings and demonstrated by his
works. The circular colonnaded structure is an adaptation of the classical
style that Jefferson introduced into this country. Rudulph Evans was
sculptor of the bronze statue of Jefferson in the center of the memorial.
The memorial was dedicated in 1943 on the 200th anniversary of Jefferson's
birth, four years after President Franklin Roosevelt laid the cornerstone.
The memorial appears at its most beautiful in early spring when the Japanese
cherry trees are in bloom. The trees were presented as a gift from the city
of Tokyo to the city of Washington in 1912.
About Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson - political philosopher, architect, musician, book
collector, scientist, horticulturist, diplomat, inventor, and third
President of the United States - looms large in any discussion of what
Americans are as a people. Jefferson left to the future not only ideas but
also a great body of practical achievements. President John F. Kennedy
recognized Jefferson's accomplishments when he told a gathering of American
Nobel Prize winners that they were the greatest assemblage of talent in the
White House since Jefferson had dined there alone. With his strong beliefs
in the rights of man and a government derived from the people, in freedom of
religion and the separation of church and state, and in education available
to all, Thomas Jefferson struck a chord for human liberty 200 years ago that
resounds through the decades. But in the end, Jefferson's own appraisal of
his life, and the one that he wrote for use on his own tombstone, suffices:
"Author of the Declaration of Independence, Of the Statute of Virginia for
religious freedom, And Father of the University of Virginia."
Additional Information:
http://www.nps.gov/thje/
http://www.nps.gov/thje/home.htm
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