FDR DEDICATES THE JEFFERSON MEMORIAL
Washington, D.C. (JFK+50) On April 13, 1943, the Jefferson Memorial was dedicated here in the Nation's Capital. The impressive structure, in honor of the author of the Declaration of Independence and third POTUS, was designed by John Russell Pope*.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who laid the cornerstone in 1939, gave the dedication speech.
The President said...
"The words which we have chosen for the memorial speak Jefferson's noblest and most urgent meaning and we are proud indeed to understand and share it:
'I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form tyranny over the mind of man.'"
*John Russell Pope (1874-1937) was born in New York & graduated from Columbia University in 1894. JRP attended the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1896 & was the 1st to receive the Rome Prize.
JRP designed the National Archives Building, the National Gallery & the Triumphal Arch Theodore Roosevelt Memorial in 1936.
