A Closer Look At The Lincoln Memorial Shows A Coded Message Hidden In Abe’s Hands

One hundred years on from when it was first unveiled, the Lincoln Memorial has firmly secured its status as one of America’s most important landmarks. Countless people climb the 87 stone steps that lead to the statue of the former president every single day. It makes for an epic photo op.

But despite the monument’s immensity and grandeur, visitors might also be struck by its unusually personal aura. Even though the statue of Lincoln is enormous and rests within a sort of temple, it somehow feels intimate. While other famous statues are depicted as more god-like, this one makes the subject seem human.

Harry Rubenstein, a curator in the political history wing of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, gave an expert's perspective on exactly why the Lincoln Memorial sits head and shoulders above other famous global landmarks. Speaking to National Geographic magazine, he said, “As far as monuments go, this is a really, really good one. It has that temple-like quality, and the statue reveals itself slowly as you walk up the steps — it doesn’t hit you all at once. And as you move up, you are made small by this incredible statue.”

While the sheer scale of the giant Lincoln perched in a chair is what most people take in, the Lincoln Memorial is also richly symbolic. But some of the messages hidden within the statue’s design can be difficult to pick up on. So they tend to be missed by the average observer.

The intentional details concealed within the monument trace back to the immediate aftermath of Abraham Lincoln’s murder. Pretty much straight away, people were calling for a monument to be raised in his honor. But it would take many decades and several design reworks for the project to really get off the ground properly.

It was only many decades after Lincoln’s death that a memorial was finally given the green light by Congress, which set aside $2 million for the project in 1911. Still, even at this point, progress remained very slow. For three years, debate raged about exactly what it should be and where it should be sited.

In the end, the person tasked with the memorial’s design was Henry Bacon, who’d previously studied in Europe. His stint abroad gave Bacon a taste for ancient Greek design, which would ultimately come to be seen in his plans for the Lincoln Memorial. If you look at the structure today, you’ll see a purposeful resemblance to the Parthenon temple that stands at the heart of Athens.

It’s difficult to imagine the statue of Lincoln standing inside any other building besides the one Bacon designed. But his idea was actually one of many. Another man named John Russell Pope also came up with a bunch of other designs that were ultimately rejected. And some of them were fairly off the wall.

One of Pope’s rejected designs resembled a Mayan temple, which would house an enormous, undying flame. Another idea for the building was based on a ziggurat, a structure most famously found in ancient Mesopotamia. And yet another of Pope’s concepts resembled a pyramid from ancient Egypt. All were dismissed, but Pope would ultimately go on to design the Jefferson Memorial down the line.

It was Bacon who would design the Lincoln Memorial, and he had some strong ideas when it came to the symbolism his building would employ. For instance, he was adamant that the stone used in the construction should come from all over the United States. That, in his mind, would epitomize Lincoln’s commitment to the Union.

Bacon’s design is full of little messages to be interpreted, if you look close enough. But what of the statue of Lincoln that’s housed there? Well, this thing is rich in symbolism, too, but it wasn’t Bacon who was responsible for this. No, he just designed the building. The statue was the work of Daniel Chester French.

French’s Lincoln statue was clearly designed with care. The president’s face is very expressive and thoughtful, plus he is seated — an unusual feature for statues of this nature. Why did French make these decisions? Well, that’s open to interpretation, as a writer behind a biography of the sculptor has explained to National Geographic.

According to Harold Holzer, French rarely chose to explain the finer points of the thinking behind the works he designed. Elaborating, he said, “My favorite French quote on this was: ‘A statue has to speak for itself, and it seems useless to explain to everyone what it means. I have no doubt that people will read into my statue of Lincoln a great deal I did not consciously think. Whether it will be for good or ill, who can say?’”

French worked on his statue for about five years. That’s a long time, but it clearly illustrates the scale of his task. Even just in terms of its size, it’s easy to understand why he needed so much time to complete the project. Even though the figure of Lincoln is seated, it’s still extremely tall.

From the seated position, the figure of Lincoln reaches about 19 feet. But if it was standing up, it would reach about 27 feet. Incidentally, the original design was way smaller, but French revised it. His originally intended scale, with the seated figure reaching 10 feet, would have left it appearing dwarfed within Bacon’s immense temple.

As for the expression on Lincoln’s face, French put in a lot of research to get it right. He studied photographs of the slain president, as well as reading descriptions of him. As Rubenstein said, “It was Lincoln under stress, who had the burdens of presidency and the war. Those are the photos [French] had to work with, not those of a young Lincoln.”

French didn’t work on his statue alone: it was far too big a project for that. No, he actually hired a group of brothers to carve the stone. The Piccirillis were six men originally from Italy who’d made a name for themselves in America as excellent sculptors.

The Piccirilli brothers put in a lot of work on this project. Laboring in their workshop in the Bronx, New York, these men took great care to chisel out this statue in a series of slabs, which were then brought to Washington D.C. and assembled on-site. Their contribution was invaluable, yet they’re perhaps not as famous as you’d expect. French actually suggested carving their name into the plinth of the statue, but they declined the proposed credit.

All in all, the whole Lincoln Memorial project took a long, long time. Work on the foundations started in February 1914 and was finished up in May 1915. Progress was steady on the main structure until April 1917, which is when the U.S. began to fight in World War I. That derailed the project, slowing it down drastically.

Still, by the end of 1919 the project was really starting to take shape. Throughout that December and the following month of January, the Lincoln statue itself was successfully pieced together. By 1921 paths leading to the landmark were installed, as were gardens. By May 30, 1922, the memorial had reached a level of completion where it could be officially dedicated. Finishing touches to the monument’s surroundings, though, continued for a few more years.

Nowadays, it’s probably fair to suggest that the Lincoln Memorial is Washington D.C.’s most beloved monument. According to newspaper The Washington Post, a regular year will see something like 8 million people showing up to pay a visit to the structure. People of all stripes come to see the famous attraction firsthand.

For 100 years now, the Lincoln Memorial has been an American icon. It’s shown up in a bunch of movies, it can be seen on the currency, and it was the setting of some very important historical moments. Most notably, perhaps, Martin Luther King delivered his “I Have a Dream” monolog there in 1963.

The Lincoln Memorial is instantly recognizable to so many people, who have grown up seeing it in films, on money, or in real life. But not everyone fully appreciates the symbols and messages hidden away under the surface. There’s a lot going on at that monument, even down to something as simple as the statue’s hands.

French put a lot of consideration into these hands. And despite his reputation for keeping quiet about his work, he even wrote about them. He said, “It has always seemed to me that the hands in portraiture were only secondary to the face in expression, and I depend quite as much upon them in showing character in force.”

The statue’s right hand is open, while the left is clenched tightly. You might not think much of this, but lots of other people have read plenty into it. They think the open hand is welcoming, an extension of acceptance and warmth to his one-time Confederate enemies. The closed hand, meanwhile, shows Lincoln’s resolve to win the war.

This seems like a reasonable interpretation of the statue’s hands and their meaning. But other people have proffered some additional thoughts about what French intended to convey with them. They think the designer had an understanding of sign language, and that the position of the hands was actually expressing the letters “L” and “A.”

This might seem like a stretch, but proponents of the theory do have evidence they can cite to back up the claim. French had previously produced a statue of Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, who was a pioneering figure when it came to educating the deaf community. This statue showed Gallaudet teaching a child the sign for “A.”

On top of that, Abraham Lincoln himself was known to be interested in deaf education. He wanted to encourage the take-up of sign language, and even gave the go-ahead for Gallaudet University. As the name suggests, this school for the deaf was established by the very same man who, as intimated above, became the subject of another of French’s statues. It all fits.

But who knows whether or not French really did intend his statue to communicate in sign? It’s possible, but let’s not dwell on it. There are, after all, plenty of other signs and symbols at the site that bear closer examination. Some people, for instance, see references to the Roman Empire in the design.

The Lincoln statue is resting its arms upon stacks of timber known as fasces, which in Roman times expressed power. Elsewhere, the columns of the monument — which are based on the Parthenon — are themselves full of hidden meaning. There are 36 of them, which is important. They represent the 36 states that, during Lincoln’s time, constituted the Union.

The columns also have an interesting quirk, which is more for practical reasons rather than symbolic ones. The pillars look straight, but in actual fact they’re tilted. If they weren’t, the structure as a whole would look a little out of shape. It’s strange, but the best way to make them look straight was to tilt them.

Another secret hidden away at the Lincoln Memorial is a massive chamber that sits underneath the statue. Given the sheer scale of the monument, the foundations needed to go very deep into the ground. That meant a big, subterranean space was required, and it’s obviously still there today.

The chamber is about three stories tall, and it’s known as the “undercroft.” It’s extremely evocative to think this massive, secret space exists underneath such a famous monument, and it’s easy to get carried away thinking about it. In reality, though, there’s not much down there, except from some stalactites and a little graffiti from the construction workers who’d labored there.

The Lincoln Memorial is obviously recognizable from the features we can see from the ground level. But the reality is that a huge proportion of the structure is actually beneath the surface. Roughly 40 percent of the total space it occupies lies underground, hidden away from public view.

Back up on the surface, we can see a pair of the real Lincoln’s most well-known speeches carved into the walls. On one flank are the words from the Gettysburg Address, while on the other is his Inaugural Address following his reelection as president. These speeches are a huge part of the man’s legacy.

You would think, then, that every single word would appear on the monument’s walls in pristine shape. In reality, that’s just not so. The truth is that the Inaugural Address was actually carved into the wall with a mistake. It shows up in the sentence that should read: “With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.”

Whoever was chiseling out this phrase made an error. Instead of carving out “future,” they accidentally used an “E” at the start of the word, spelling out the non-existent word “euture.” They must have been mortified! And while the mistake was covered over, if you look very carefully, you can still make out the blunder today.

Despite this mistake, the Lincoln Memorial is still one of the most revered monuments in the United States. And the man who created the statue within it always knew this would be the case. He was perfectly aware that people would study his design with a rabid intensity and interest.

So while the name Daniel Chester French isn’t terribly well-known today, his masterpiece is among the most famous creations in America. The sculptor put a lot of thought and effort into his design, loading it with meaning and symbolism. And even now, a hundred years after its unveiling, it continues to enrapture virtually all those who come to see it.