Tag Archives: lincoln

Apr 14 2015
Art

lincoln rocker

lincoln chair

Lincoln was assassinated 150 years ago today in DC’s Ford’s Theater.

The rocker Lincoln was sitting in that night was kept by the feds during investigation of the assassination, and then given back to the theater owner’s widow. She put it up for auction, and it was purchased by Henry Ford in 1929 for a cool twenty-four hundred dollars (a measly $32,000 today). The photo above is a part of the series of its arrival to Dearborn, Michigan.

To celebrate their priceless artifact, and the sesquicentennial of all things Lincoln, the Henry Ford Museum is offering free admission tomorrow, April 15th.

Another Lincoln fun fact? The Surratt Boarding House, the infamous conspirators’  meeting place, is now a Wok ‘n Roll on H Street in Chinatown, like four blocks away. What I love most is Wikipedia touts the location’s available karaoke rooms just as it appearing on the National Register of Historic Places.

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Jun 27 2014
Art Video

lincoln memorial

lincoln memorial

With a week until the Fourth of July, I decided to focus on a major American achievement — the return of overalls the Lincoln Memorial.

Sculptor: David Chester French
Also known for: DuPont Memorial Fountain, John Harvard statue (full oeuvre here).

Memorial, by the numbers:

  • 35 – outer columns (one for each state in the Union at the time of the Civil War)
  • 28 – blocks of marble carved by the Piccirilli Brothers that create Lincoln
  • 9 – replicas of smaller “working Lincolns” French cast from the original
  • 48 – wreathes festoons (one for each state in 1922 — fancy!)
  • 7 – ranking on “America’s Favorite Architecture” list (2007)
  • 0 – at the time of publication of this post, the number of times “Wedding Crashers” was named in the Lincoln Memorial Wiki’s section “In Popular Culture” (like, HELLO!?)

I overheard a tour guide say, “the story gets happier” when he described Robert Lincoln being able to attend the dedication of the Lincoln Memorial. My footnote for that in my notes? “Haha.”

 

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