Lincoln Memorial with Boy Scouts, c. 1940

The Lincoln Memorial

Completed in 1922, the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., is the subject of countless patriotic renderings. Here, a group of Boy Scouts reverently gazes at the oversize marble statue of Lincoln designed by Daniel Chester French. Over the years, millions of people have visited the shrine and it has served as a political gathering place, most notably a massive civil rights rally on August 28, 1963, when the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his stirring “I Have a Dream” speech in which he called Lincoln a great American but observed that blacks, though free, still lacked equal rights and access to opportunity.