Thomas Edison once joked that he figured out a hundred ways not to invent a light bulb. The same could be said of the Lincoln Memorial. Kurt talks to historians, a sculptor, and writer Sarah Vowell about the memorial.
In the spring of 1939, opera singer Marian Anderson was banned from performing at Washington, D.C.'s Constitution Hall because she was African-American. Dorothy Height remembers how that event sparked a relationship between the burgeoning Civil Rights movement and the Lincoln Memorial.
The Lincoln Memorial has become enshrined in our popular imagination as the back-drop to Martin Luther King Jr's 1963 "I have a dream" speech. Kurt talks with Professor James Horton about the hope King inspired.
You might remember the scene from Oliver Stone's movie Nixon: The President went to the Lincoln Memorial in the dark of night and was confronted by student protesters. Former White House aide Egil "Bud" Krogh says Stone got it wrong—Nixon didn't just talk about football.
Kurt looks at how Hollywood uses the Lincoln Memorial as a confession booth for plucky characters whose idealism needs a quick shot in the arm.
Has Abraham Lincoln become a secular Jesus for our culture? Kurt talks with playwright Suzan Lori-Parks, historian Doris Kearns Goodwin and Sarah Vowell about why Lincoln speaks to the better angels of our nature.
Lincoln's speech to remember the Civil War soldiers who died at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania in 1863 was surprisingly brief, but it became one of the cornerstones of American history. David Strathairn read the Address for Studio 360.
Studio 360's American Icons is made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities: great ideas brought to life.
Studio 360 is a co-production of
Public
Radio International and
WNYC New York Public Radio, and is funded in part by
Ken and Lucy Lehman, the
National Endowment for the Arts, the Lily Auchincloss Foundation, and
DK Eyewitness Travel. Studio 360's American Icons series is supported in part by the
National Endowment for the Humanities. Our series on creativity and science is supported in part by the
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Our series on Underground Heroes is supported in part by the New York State Music Fund, established by the New York State Attorney General at Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors. 
Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
