In 1922, Congress received a proposal from the Washington, DC, chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy to create the "Faithful Slave Mammies of the South" memorial recognizing the supposed loyalty of enslaved women to their owners during…

In 1912 John Russell Pope submitted several entries to the design competition for the Lincoln Memorial. They were each distinct from one another. This submission was a unique pyramid design. Known as the Ziggurat Style, this style features middle…

Located on the grounds of the Washington Monument, the Survey Lodge was originally a boiler and steam house for the machinery necessary to power the Washington Monument's elevator. It was constructed of leftover marble and granite from the…

Memorial Lodge is a small, flat-roofed, one-story building less than 500 feet east of the Washington Monument. It serves as an information station where tickets can be retrieved to visit the top of the Washington Monument. Originally constructed in…

Originally, Braddock's Rock was a sizable outcropping of Piedmont stone jutting into the Potomac. Called the "Key of all Keys," this rock became a starting point for surveyors drawing property lines for early settlers. In 1755, General Edward…

The First Division Monument, funded by the Society of the First Division, was first created to remember First Division soldiers who died while serving in World War I. The Monument, designed by Cass Gilbert and Daniel Chester French, was dedicated in…

The Washington Monument is the only actual monument on the National Mall because Washington was alive when it began to be planned. All others on the Mall are memorials, created after the person being remembered has died. Begun in 1848, construction…

George Mason (1725-1792), author of Virginia's Declaration of Rights, was a delegate to the Constitutional Convention. He refused to sign the Constitution because of the absence of a Bill of Rights and a disagreement over the issue of standing…

This monument to President James Garfield (1831-1881) depicts him giving a speech, gazing outward with papers in one hand. Garfield was elected in 1880, but he served only four months of his term before his assassination in a railroad station on the…

The Peace Monument, also known as the Naval Monument and the Civil War Sailors Monument, honors naval deaths at sea during the American Civil War. Admiral David Dixon Porter conceived the idea of the monument and sketched an initial design in the…