The Lincoln Memorial and American Life - narrative description of 1922 dedication ceremony

 by Christopher A. Thomas (pages 154-55)

"The dedication was a microcosm of both the promising and the unfortunate in American life.

Though focused on a classical temple, it celebrated the futuristic ideal of progress through

technology that animated many Americans in the 1920s.  Along with the crowds came the headache

of parking ten thousand cars, a harbinger of things to come in Potomac Park.

The speeches, delivered with classical rhetorical flourish by speakers in striped pants and

swallowtail coats, were carried to the ears of the crowds by microphones and loudspeakers.  The

speeches were audible because, though airplanes were allowed to fly over the memorial before

and after the ceremony to take aerial photographs, a two-mile boundary on overflight was imposed

during official proceedings.  The pilot of a commercial plane got the time wrong, however,

and flew over the memorial 'with its motor making a hideous noise. . .while the President

was speaking' - - another hint of things to come"