The Lincoln Memorial through the lens of 1922 media
Sunday, May 21, 1922, was going to be another sweltering day in Portland. So, 89-year-old Civil War veteran James Downing decided to read his copy of the Oregonian under a shade tree in his backyard. He had just returned from the Montavilla Methodist Episcopal Church morning service, where a fellow veteran had told him about an illustrated story on the new Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. In his eagerness to see it, Downing skipped the front-page news about the Ku Klux Klan and Oregon politics and went straight to the magazine section.
There, he studied the photos of the gigantic statue of Lincoln and the temple-like building that housed it. He read, once again, the stirring words of Lincoln’s Gettysburg address inscribed on a huge marble tablet. Memories of those war-torn years came flooding back. How often had he shared his Civil War experiences with fellow members of the Montavilla McKinley Post of the Grand Army of the Republic? He also recalled his early days in Portland, when he went downtown to view the huge panoramic painting commemorating the bloody battle at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
This little story is, of course, fiction. But the facts are true.
James Downing (1837-1927) was a real person who served in the Civil War on the Union side. As a young man, he enlisted in Missouri’s 3rd Cavalry. He did live in Montavilla, arriving in 1890 and opening a grocery store here. In 1891, he became Montavilla’s first postmaster. And he was a member of the McKinley Post of the Grand Army of the Republic, a national association of Union Civil War veterans. And he attended Montavilla’s Methodist Episcopal Church on SE 80th Avenue until his death.
There really was a huge panoramic painting in downtown Portland illustrating the Battle of Gettysburg. The circular painting occupied a purpose-built structure and was open to the public from 1887 to 1892.
There really was an article about the Lincoln Memorial in the May 21, 1922, edition of the Oregonian, as well as many column inches on page one devoted to Oregon politics and the Klan. And, yes, the newspaper really did predict a high of 85 degrees on that day.
James Downing was one of eight Civil War veterans whom I could positively identify as still being alive in 1922 when the long-awaited Lincoln Memorial was finally built. As far as I know, none of these veterans attended the dedication ceremony in Washington. So, like James, they would have experienced it vicariously through the Portland press.
Today we get our news through a variety of media, but in 1922, it mostly came in print and photos. Although, as we’ll see, that was beginning to change.
Portland newspapers were covering the Lincoln Memorial story by April 23, 1922, a little over a month before its dedication on May 30. The April 23 edition of the Oregon Journal informed readers that the Memorial was on an axis stretching from the Capitol to the Washington Monument to the recently dedicated U.S. Grant equestrian statue and finally to the new Lincoln Memorial. The alignment connected a critical institution and persons in American history.
In the May 21, 1922, edition of the Oregonian, readers could view a half-page of fuzzy images and a little text in the magazine section. They marvel at the weight of the Lincoln statue—175 tons. They could see that the Gettysburg Address was carved into a huge white marble tablet.
Two days before the dedication ceremony, the Sunday Oregonian of May 28, 1922, informed readers that the 2,000-foot reflecting pool had taken ten years to build and was designed to symbolically join the Washington and Lincoln monuments. The article explained the symbolism of the Lincoln building: 36 columns represent the states that existed in Lincoln’s time; the festoons above the columns acknowledge the states in 1922. The reader learned that the Lincoln statue was 19 feet high and that sculptor Daniel Chester French took 4 years to complete it.
In its August 20, 1922, edition, Oregonian readers were treated to a photo of the Lincoln Memorial illuminated at night by an Army searchlight.
The printed press, with its words and images, was not the only way to convey information about the Lincoln Memorial. New forms—such as movies—had been appearing since the late 19th century. In June, 1922, the Pantages theater in downtown Portland screened a film about the dedication of the Lincoln Memorial, which the Oregonian described as “impressive and inspiring.”
In 1922, broadcast radio was also emerging as cutting-edge technology. The Oregonian of May 30, 1922, announced that speeches by President Harding and Chief Justice Taft delivered at the Lincoln Memorial dedication ceremony would be broadcast in the U.S. from the Naval Aircraft Radio Laboratory in Anacostia, Washington, D.C. By this time, both the Oregonian and the Oregon Journal had recently begun radio broadcasting, but it’s unclear whether the Naval broadcast signal made it to Portland. It is clear, however, that the “radio craze” marked a new era of electronic communication and would change the ways we receive and process the news to this day.
As the “radio craze” caught on, a store selling radios opened in Montavilla in 1927 at the corner of 90th and Stark. Mr. H. A. Hall’s store—built in the shape of a radio—was such a sensation that police were called in to control the turnout.
For veterans of the long-ago Civil War, the new era of electronic communication must have seemed a strange new world indeed.
By
This is part of Montavilla History Questions Answered, a series of history related articles. If you have questions about Montavilla’s past that you’d like answered, local historian Patricia Sanders will investigate your question. Please email your questions to history@montavilla.net and we may feature it alongside Patricia Sanders’ research in a future.