Monument
Thomas Jefferson Memorial
Domed marble rotunda holding a nineteen-foot bronze statue of a founding father overlooking the Tidal Basin.
0:00≈ 2 min
Location
0:00≈ 2 min
About this audio guide
This guide to the Thomas Jefferson Memorial returns to April 13, 1943, when five thousand spectators packed the rotunda while a war raged on two oceans and Franklin Roosevelt called the building a shrine to freedom. It follows sculptor Rudolph Evans, whose finished design couldn't be cast in wartime metal, and a two-and-a-half-year-old boy, one of dozens of Jefferson's descendants present, who pulled the cord at the ceremony. Marines, the guide notes, stood guard that night over the actual Declaration of Independence, smuggled in from Fort Knox.
This audio guide was created using AI.