40 Fun Facts About Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial

Long before the FDR Memorial was built, FDR said any monument to him should be no bigger than what?

His desk was the limit he set in 1941, so friends placed a plain marble block that size in Washington in 1965. The far larger memorial opened 32 years after that.

Which Scottish terrier, FDR's faithful companion, sits in bronze beside him at the FDR Memorial?

Fala is the only presidential pet honored with a statue in a presidential memorial. FDR named him Murray the Outlaw of Falahill, after a Scottish ancestor.

In the 'Fireside Chat' sculpture at the FDR Memorial, a man sits beside which household object?

A radio is the point of the scene, because FDR's fireside chats were broadcasts rather than hearthside talks. He used them to speak directly to Americans through the Depression.

Which president dedicated the FDR Memorial, more than four decades after planning began?

Bill Clinton dedicated it on May 2, 1997, ending a wait that began when a memorial commission was created in 1955. Construction itself only started in 1991.

What does each of the four main outdoor rooms at the FDR Memorial in Washington represent?

One of his terms in office is the theme of each room, so the walk covers twelve years of history in order. FDR is the only president elected four times.

The statue of the First Lady at the FDR Memorial stands before the emblem of which organization?

The United Nations emblem honors her post-war work as one of the first US delegates there. No other presidential memorial depicts a First Lady.

A row of bronze men at the FDR Memorial stands in a Depression-era line, waiting for free what?

Bread is what they queue for in George Segal's sculpture The Breadline, the memorial's image of urban hunger. A bronze farm couple nearby stands for rural hardship.

The tumbled stone blocks and chaotic waterfall in Room Three of the FDR Memorial evoke which event?

World War II is the theme, so the fountain looks bombed, with stones knocked out of place. Scattered blocks nearby carry three carved words of FDR's: I hate war.

Which disease, diagnosed when FDR was 39, caused the disability depicted at the FDR Memorial?

Polio struck in 1921, and the memorial's carved timeline says he never again walked unaided. He hid the extent of his disability from the public throughout his presidency.

The FDR Memorial's entrance statue shows a wheelchair that FDR designed himself from what type of seat?

A kitchen chair fitted with wheels was his own invention, though he was rarely photographed in it. The life-size bronze was added in 2001 after protests that the memorial hid his disability.

Which blossoming trees, a 1912 gift from Japan, line the waterside walk beside the FDR Memorial?

Cherry trees line the water's edge here, and the memorial sits on the Cherry Tree Walk. The first ones were a gift from the mayor of Tokyo, planted as a sign of friendship.

The FDR Memorial stretches along the southwest shore of which man-made Washington reservoir?

The Tidal Basin is overlooked by three major memorials, and this one spreads across 7.5 acres of its southwest side. The path through the rooms follows the curve of the shore.

An inscription at the FDR Memorial quotes FDR saying America must be the great arsenal of what?

Democracy was the word he chose in a broadcast of December 29, 1940, almost a year before the United States entered the fighting. He was promising to supply the countries resisting Nazi Germany while America stayed out.

Which name for FDR's recovery program comes from a 1932 pledge now carved at the FDR Memorial?

New Deal was his promise when he accepted the 1932 nomination, and it became the label for dozens of programs. The Square Deal and the Fair Deal belonged to other presidents.

The FDR Memorial is about halfway between the Lincoln Memorial and the memorial to which president?

Thomas Jefferson has the domed memorial on the far shore, and FDR himself laid its cornerstone in November 1939. Both sites share the same stretch of parkland.

Which federal agency, whose rangers answer visitors' questions on site, operates the FDR Memorial?

The National Park Service runs it, a fitting link: FDR said in 1934 that there was nothing so American as the national parks. He argued they showed the country belongs to the people.

Whose words about illness bringing strength are carved behind the FDR Memorial's wheelchair statue?

Eleanor Roosevelt wrote that his illness taught him infinite patience and never-ending persistence. Her words face visitors as they arrive, before the story of the presidency begins.

The red granite that forms the walls of the FDR Memorial was quarried in which US state?

South Dakota supplied the pinkish carnelian stone, and a gray granite from Minnesota joins it. FDR's words are cut straight into these walls by master carver John Benson.

Which landscape architect, known for San Francisco's Ghirardelli Square, designed the FDR Memorial?

Lawrence Halprin was chosen in 1974 and built a sequence of garden rooms instead of a single marble monument. The result feels more like a secluded garden than a traditional memorial.

Leonard Baskin's bronze relief in the last room of the FDR Memorial shows which event of April 1945?

His funeral procession is shown with horses pulling a caisson that carries the casket, set above a still pool for reflection. He had died at 63, under three months after his last swearing-in.

A bronze relief in Room One of the FDR Memorial, modeled on film footage, shows FDR at which event?

His 1933 inauguration appears as a blurred street scene with only FDR in focus, as he is driven away afterward. The panel sits beneath the best-known line of that day's speech.

Bronze panels at the FDR Memorial give 1930s program initials in letters and which other script?

Braille recalls the era's printing of texts for blind readers, yet critics found some of it mounted eight feet up, beyond reach. Some dots were also wrongly spaced.

The stepped waterfall in Room Two of the FDR Memorial represents the dam-building of which agency?

The Tennessee Valley Authority brought dams and flood control to one of the country's great river basins. Its name is carved beside the falls, under FDR's call for planning across many states.

An FDR Memorial inscription quotes FDR proposing which work program for jobless young men?

The Civilian Conservation Corps gave unemployed, unmarried men conservation jobs for nine years. FDR said the moral and spiritual value of the work mattered more than the material gains.

The timeline carved into steps at the FDR Memorial begins with FDR's birth in which New York town?

Hyde Park, on the Hudson River, is also where he is buried, in the rose garden of the family estate. The timeline's first entry is January 30, 1882.

The FDR Memorial's carved biography ends with FDR's death in April 1945 in which Georgia town?

Warm Springs was where he had founded a rehabilitation center in the 1920s, drawn by hopes for water therapy. He died there on April 12, 1945, a day before a speech he never gave.

The life story etched at the FDR Memorial lists which post for FDR for the years 1928 to 1932?

Governor of New York was his springboard to the White House, won only seven years after illness paralyzed his legs. He was elected president while still serving in Albany.

The wheelchair statue added to the FDR Memorial in 2001 was paid for mainly with what?

Private donations of $1.65 million were raised over two years by the National Organization on Disability. Its supporters argued that showing his disability showed the source of his strength.

The Four Freedoms listed at the FDR Memorial are of speech, of worship, from want and from what?

Fear was the fourth, and FDR tied it to a worldwide reduction of armaments so no nation could attack a neighbor. He set out all four in his State of the Union address of January 1941.

An FDR Memorial inscription says this generation of Americans has a rendezvous with what?

Destiny was the word FDR chose on June 27, 1936, accepting renomination before a stadium crowd at Franklin Field. It is among the first quotations visitors meet in Room One.

Whose memorial, opened in 2011, is the FDR Memorial's close neighbor on the same shoreline?

Martin Luther King is honored a short walk away, and the last room of the FDR Memorial looks out toward his memorial. It opened in August 2011 at the northwest corner of the same shore.

Washington's first FDR memorial, a plain marble block placed in 1965, sits outside which building?

The National Archives lawn was the spot FDR picked himself, asking for something plain and without ornament. Associates dedicated the block on the twentieth anniversary of his death.

The FDR Memorial's stone carver earlier cut the lettering at which president's grave at Arlington?

John F. Kennedy's memorial at Arlington was a commission John Benson won in 1964, while still in his twenties. He went on to letter the date stones of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

What stalled the FDR Memorial for well over a decade after its design was chosen in 1974?

Congress gave no funds for construction for years after the design was picked, and work only began in 1991. Two earlier designs from the 1960s had already been rejected.

Which one-word title, carved in the paving, names the entrance area added to the FDR Memorial?

Prologue is carved in front of the wheelchair statue, marking a chapter that comes before the presidency. The area was dedicated on January 10, 2001.

Which sculptor made the FDR Memorial's bronzes of the seated president, his dog and the First Lady?

Neil Estern is best known for these three figures, after more than a decade of work on them. New Yorkers also pass his striding statue of Mayor Fiorello La Guardia in Greenwich Village.

What garment drapes the larger-than-life seated bronze of FDR in Room Three of the FDR Memorial?

A cloak falls over the seat so its small rear wheels stay out of sight, just as FDR kept his disability from public view. Protests over that choice led to a second statue.

Which Bauhaus designer of the Wassily Chair had his 1960s plan for the FDR Memorial rejected?

Marcel Breuer proposed a pinwheel of tall stone triangles around a granite block bearing FDR's image, with hidden speakers playing his speeches. The fine arts commission turned it down.

Before any FDR Memorial existed, FDR told which Supreme Court justice what memorial he wanted?

Felix Frankfurter was called to the White House in September 1941 to hear the wish, and he remembered it. A small group of FDR's associates carried it out twenty years after his death.

The FDR Memorial, like the Korean War Veterans Memorial, lies within which Washington parkland?

West Potomac Park runs south from the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool and wraps around the water where the memorial sits. It also holds the George Mason Memorial.