In 1934, Congress authorized the creation of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial to honor the founding father most accepted as
having been the political philosopher of the American Revolution. Planners and architects argued for a decade over the location and design of the Jefferson Memorial. When a site was actually chosen, at the south side of the Tidal Basin, a group of female activists, who protested that the location since it displaced a number of cherry trees, actually chained themselves to a few trees in order to stop construction.
However, the memorial continued as planned. President Franklin Roosevelt presided over the dedication of the Jefferson Memorial on April 13, 1943, the 200th anniversary of Jefferson's birth. The design, by architect John Russell Pope, who was also the architect of the National Gallery of Art and the National Archives, reflected Thomas Jefferson's love of the round, columned style. It is similar to the design of Jefferson's library at the University of Virginia and of Jefferson's own, rejected, plans for the White House.
Currently, the memorial is undergoing restoration along with the Lincoln Memorial. More information on the memorial can be found on the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Homepage and Virtual Visitors' Center.
