Qualla: Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool

Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Hu Totya, CC BY-SA 4.0. On Easter Sunday, April 9, 1939, contralto Marian Anderson stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and sang to a crowd of 75,000 people who stretched along the water in front of her. The Daughters of the American Revolution had refused her use of Constitution Hall because she was Black. Eleanor Roosevelt resigned from the DAR in protest. Anderson opened with My Country, 'Tis of Thee. The mile-long rectangle of water that ran east toward the Washington Monument acted as a vast amplifier, doubling the crowd in reflection, doubling Lincoln's columns, doubling the sky. The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool was only sixteen years old that day. It has hosted some of the largest gatherings in American history ever since.

Image: Hu Totya | CC BY-SA 4.0

Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool: Bacon's Long Rectangle

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Brian Sharp, CC BY-SA 4.0. Architect Henry Bacon designed the Lincoln Memorial, and when the memorial was dedicated in 1922, he set about designing its eastern foreground: a reflecting pool 2,030 feet long and 167 feet wide, the largest such pool in Washington. Construction ran through 1922 and 1923. The w...

Image: Brian Sharp | CC BY-SA 4.0

Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool: Two Hundred Fifty Thousand

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ad Meskens, CC BY-SA 3.0. On August 28, 1963, the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom drew approximately 250,000 people to the foot of Lincoln Memorial. They stood along the reflecting pool stretching east to the Washington Monument - a crowd so vast that aerial photographs needed long lenses to capt...

Image: Ad Meskens | CC BY-SA 3.0

Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool: A Pool on Marsh

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rdsmith4, CC BY-SA 2.5. By the late 2000s, the pool was failing. Decades of settling in the soft river clay that once formed the Potomac's tidal flats had cracked the basin. Water was being filled from the city's potable supply and turning stagnant. Algae bloomed. Walking paths along the edges had erode...

Image: Rdsmith4 | CC BY-SA 2.5

Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool: The Snail Problem

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Javier Losa, CC BY 2.0. In June 2017, the pool was drained again. This time the cause was parasitic flatworms that infect aquatic snails and cause swimmer's itch in humans - and lethal infections in ducks. More than eighty ducks and ducklings had died at the pool since May 20 of that year. Park Service ...

Image: Javier Losa | CC BY 2.0

Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool: Two Thousand Candles

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Andrew Bossi, CC BY-SA 3.0. On December 31, 2012, National Park Rangers - using their own money and their own time - lit more than 2,000 candles along the edges of the rebuilt pool. They had gathered to mark the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, which Lincoln had signed on January 1, 1863....

Image: Andrew Bossi | CC BY-SA 3.0