So I’m sitting at the drive-thru, waiting to pay for my meal, when I start studying the back of my $5.00 bill. Now this is one of those new-fangled bills, in which everything is blown up to a much higher resolution than before.
So anyway, I start to read the names of the states, listed on the Lioncoln Memorial, and notice that entire states are missing and I wonder why.
I’m not talking about states admitted to the union after Lincoln was president, I’m sure the Memorial was constructed with the idea of only mentioning those states which existed when Lincoln was president. I’m talking about the fact that neither North or South Carolina are mentioned, while some unknown state called “Carolina” is.
Even more reprehensible than that, is the utter omission of “Rhode Island” from the monument. WHY?!
Hijack: Can’t tell you about the states thing, but in the real LM the Gettysburg Address, which is engraved on one of the walls, is missing a minor word or two (“the” I believe); the speech still makes perfect sense without it, of course. I think the legend is that without the extra word(s), the stonecutter could fill out the line more evenly.
Is there a difference between the monument as portrayed on the bill and the way it really appears? IIRC, the states go all the way around the memorial, and appear in more than one band. It might just be a matter of the depiction on the bill only showing one side – you can’t see the ones in the back of the memorial because you only have picture of the front of the bill. Or you might not be able to see the other, smaller band.
If you go to the Memorial, all 50 states are listed although I’ve never been able to find Alaska and Hawaii. However, the brochure from the Park Service says they are listed.
I’m pretty sure the states are listed in order of admission to the Union, which provides a convenient way to see what the next “state quarter” is going to be. (Convenient, that is, if you pass by the memorial regularly!) As CalMeacham said, the names work their way around the monument on one level, then continue on a higher level in slightly smaller size.
Alzarian– I’ll have to check to be sure, but I think the “Carolina” engraving actually has the word “North” or “South” just above it in much smaller letters. This may have been done for the longer state names so that they could be evenly spaced to fit the dimensions of the monument. They may have done the same thing with other states.
My daily commute takes me over the Memorial Bridge, right to the rear of the LM. The states do indeed go all the way around the Memorial. So does the park for that matter, so when you come for a visit don’t be in such a hurry to move on to the next site. Make sure you take it all in.
RE: Alaska’s location - I think it is located right next to the fifty-first state, Canada.