The Jefferson Memorial

This volume on "The Jefferson Memorial" by Joseph Ferry for the American Symbols and their Meanings series is as much a mini-biography about Thomas Jefferson as it is a look at the history of the memorial. Ferry begins with the idea of finding A Fitting Tribute for Jefferson and covers some of the early ideas for doing so when Congress established a Commission to plan, design, and build a memorial. The architect John Russell Pope submitted the deisng, based on the Pantheon of Rome, which Jefferson maintained was the perfect model of a circular building. However, Pope was given the task without the Commission holding a nationwide competition, which would have struck Jefferson as undemocratic, but which we today would recognize as the way politics works in Washington, D.C.A Notable Career covers the highlights of Jefferson's ear political life while The Politician deals with his two terms as President and afterwards. The Memorial tells some interesting tales of the planning and construction of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial, including how several Japanese women chained themselves to cherry trees that were to be destroyed to make room for the memorial and the statute of Jefferson by Rudolph Evans showed up four years after the monument was dedicated on the 200th anniversary of Jefferson's birth because of metal rationing during World War II. The final chapter looks at the Words of Jefferson, which makes sense since some of his most memorable words, including a quotation from the Declaration of Independence, are carved around the statue in the memorial.Consequently, young readers of this book will find it is half about Jefferson and half about the Memorial. I was a bit surprised at this balance after reading the volume in this series on the Lincoln Memorial, however if students pay attention they can make the connections between Jefferson's life and some of the specifics of the memorial. The book is illustrated with some of buildings designed by Jefferson, including his home at Monticello, so you can see the influences on the memorial. What there is to know about the Jefferson Memorial is pretty much in this book, such as the fact the statue looks right at the White House (although there is no explanation for the things behind the feet of Jefferson's statute; the last time I visited the memorial the guide was making a point of asking if anybody knew what they might be and I was hoping the answer would pop up in this book). Other volumes in this series look at other buildings such as the Alamo and the White House as well as symbols like the Bald Eagle, the Liberty Bell, and the Pledge of Allegiance. There are twenty volumes at this point, which means, given the standard class size in elementary schools throughout the land, that teachers could have students work individually or in pairs and account for all of these American symbols for class posters or reports.