The Lincoln Memorial, Georgia Marble and How We Memorialize Our Heroes

You might be surprised to learn that the famous statue of Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial was created from Georgia Marble. Henry Bacon, an architect, was commissioned by Congress to design a memorial to Lincoln. Bacon was a friend and admirer of the work of Daniel Chester French (1850-1931), one of the handful of great American sculptors of the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries -the “Golden Age” of American sculpture.

A few summers back, we were visiting family in Connecticut and our return flight out of Boston offered an opportunity to use our rental car to drive through Massachusetts to visit “Chesterwood” where French’s home and studio are maintained as a National Trust site.

We live near the Georgia Marble Quarry in Tate, Georgia and knew that the Lincoln Memorial statue was carved of Georgia marble. So, French’s home and studio were nother connection to be made to the Georgia Marble story.

French was only a boy when he became known as a sculptor. He won the commission to portray one of the minutemen, commemorating the Battle of Concord. It is instantly recognizable to most of us who have seen it in schoolbooks commemorating the “Short Heard Round the World.” Locals attacked British troops out of Boston at the bridge in one of the best- known acts of defiance of British authority at the start of the American Revolution.

French’s Georgia connection is in his material and subject matter. When commissioned by Congress to design a memorial to Abraham Lincoln, architect Henry Bacon asked his friend French to create a sculpture of the seated Lincoln. That work came to occupy the Lincoln Memorial building in Washington, D.C. French ordered marble, thought to be the most durable of American marbles,  from the enormous marble quarry in Tate, Georgia. (You may recall that I live near Tate and often hear explosions at the Tate quarry at night when things are quiet and the leaves are off the trees in winter.) The statue in the Lincoln memorial is nearly twenty feet high and is easily the most recognizable of American sculptures. It appears on the obverse of pennies.  In a longer article to come, I will detail how the memorial came to be, how French came to be involved in the project and why its completion was delayed for years. 

There are many local stories about the creation of the statue, one I have heard has a local person having sat in “Lincoln’s lap” while it was being carved locally. In fact, the stones were quarried and cut to French’s specifications and shipped by train to the studio of the Piccirilli sculpture studio in Brooklyn, New York where the actual carving was done using a model created by French as a guide.  The Piccirillis, father and four sons, were master carvers who had left the Carrera quarries in Italy to come to America. Creating a monumental sculpture is a special kind of art process that typically involves carving or casting using a smaller original as a model. The original , about six feeet tall is at Chesterwood.

The Piccirilli Studio was the most famous in America and the Piccirillis, father and sons, were artists in their own right, as well as stone carvers. The easily recognized lions that sit at the entrance to the New York Public Library (“Patience” and “Fortitude”) were carved from stone in their studio. Many of the leading sculptors used their studio, which employed pneumatic tools driven by a 40 horsepower electric motor, making it the most up-to-date of U.S. carving studios in the early twentieth century.

 I have not been able to determine if the other French sculpture connected with Georgia was carved in the Piccirilli Studio, but perhaps someone reading this will have run across that piece of information and will share it. This statue is the bust of General James Oglethorpe in Oglethorpe Square in Savannah, which appears to be executed in Georgia pink marble.

Portrait sculpture like the two I have mentioned have fallen into disfavor or perhaps there is not the will to spend money on such things. They can also be controversial, as was the sculpture of soldiers for the Viet Nam War Memorial in Washington. For many Americans, the “Wall” that bears the names of most Viet Nam War soldiers killed there did not meet with universal acceptance when it was new, even though it seems that it does today. The nearby lifelike sculpture of the soldiers’ group was added to satisfy traditionalists, but also include, appropriately, a woman.

I admit it. I am a traditionalist and I think it is less than ideal to memorialize our heroes by simply naming an overpass, a bridge or a highway intersection in their honor. Those things will be built with or without commemoration.  Imagine Washington, D.C. without the statues of Jefferson, Lafayette and Washington; or, Philadelphia without the statues of William Penn, Ben Franklin and the martyred president, William McKinley; or, Boston, without the Robert Gould Shaw bronze recalling the 54th US Regiment on the Commons by St. Gaudens? Or, what if there were no statue of the Marines raising the flag on Mt. Suribachi during the battle during the battle on Iwo Jima -the enormous one we see at Arlington National Cemetery.  

I hope our newest national cemetery in nearby Canton, Georgia will eventually erect statuary that will evoke the humanity of those who lie there.  Would it not be appropriate and a source of pride if it were executed in Georgia marble? The graves of many thousands of deceased veterans are marked and identified with headstones of Georgia marble. Perhaps statuary would help convey the human cost of their service.

Footnote: I will be giving a program on the subjects discussed here at theBall Ground Historical Society, Ball Ground, Georgia, which meets at City Hall on March 28, 2023 at 7:00 PM. Public invited without charge.