Each year, over four million visitors make the pilgrimage to the Lincoln Memorial. They walk along the reflecting pool and up a great flight of stairs into an immense temple. There, they confront an enormous seated marble figure who radiates dignity and wisdom. The Lincoln Memorial was dedicated on May 30, 1922. Originally proposed two years after Lincoln's assassination in 1865, the memorial to the "Savior of the Union" had taken half a century to realize.

Architect Henry Bacon wanted to create a sacred and ceremonial space, using architecture, sculpture, and the legacy of Lincoln's own words. Surrounding the temple is a colonnade of thirty-six Doric columns, one for each state of the Union at the time of Lincoln's death. On the walls above the colonnade are forty-eight memorial festoons, one for each state at the time the Memorial was dedicated. Inside, the focus is on French's statue of Lincoln, nineteen feet high and carved of Georgia marble. Dramatic in impact, Lincoln appears caught in a deep, pensive moment, silent and strong. Bacon felt the impact of Lincoln's words would be stronger than a visual representation of the Civil War, so flanking the central space are two antechambers in which the words of Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address and the Gettysburg Address are carved in stone.

Beginning in 1915, French made four models for the Lincoln Memorial. For research, he drew on Lincoln's portrait by the studio of photographer Matthew Brady, and a biography, along with casts of the President's face and hands made by Leonard Volk when Lincoln was alive. Much of the power of the statute derives from posture and gesture: the first small clay maquette focused primarily on form and shape.Then came several enlargements. While the memorial was under construction, it was discovered that the original twelve-foot model would be too small, so with the help of colossal photographic enlargements, French and Bacon decided on nineteen feet.

Many skilled artisans contributed to the making of the monument, starting with French's studio assistants in New York and Stockbridge, and the "pointing men" who enlarged the working models. From 1900 on, French employed the Piccirilli brothers to do all his marble carving. The carving from twenty-eight blocks of Georgia marble took over a year, with French himself making the final adjustments.