Harding Memorial Association membership certificate 1923

The Harding Tomb is the burial location of the 29th President of the United States,

Warren G. Harding Warren Gamaliel Harding (November 2, 1865 – August 2, 1923) was the 29th president of the United States, serving from 1921 until his death in 1923. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he was one of the most ...

and First Lady Florence Kling Harding. It is located in

Marion, Ohio Marion is a city in Marion County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. It is located in north-central Ohio, approximately north of Columbus, Ohio, Columbus. The population was 35,999 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, down slig ...

. Also known as the Harding Memorial, it was the last of the elaborate presidential tombs.

Construction

Shortly after Harding died in office, the Harding Memorial Association formed to raise money for a memorial site in honor of the late president. The association ultimately received $978,000 in donations from more than one million people across the country, as well as contributions from several European nations. Among the list of contributors from the United States were an estimated 200,000 school children, who donated pennies towards the memorial. The tomb is located in

, at the southeast corner of Vernon Heights Boulevard and Delaware Avenue, just south of Marion Cemetery.

Architecture

Construction began in 1926 and finished in the early winter of 1927. It is designed in the style of a circular Greek temple with

Doric order The Doric order is one of the three orders of ancient Greek and later Roman architecture; the other two canonical orders were the Ionic and the Corinthian. The Doric is most easily recognized by the simple circular capitals at the top of t ...

marble columns. The columns are built of Georgia white marble and are high and in diameter at the base. Designed by Henry Hornbostel, Eric Fisher Wood and Edward Mellon, the winners of a 1925 national design competition, the structure is in diameter and in height. The structure is unroofed (''peribolus''), in the style of some Greek temples in which the center ( Hypaethros) was open to the sky and without a roof (''medium autem sub diva est sine tecto''). The open design honors the Hardings' wishes that they be buried outside, and is covered in ivy and other plantings.

Burials

At their deaths, the bodies of the Hardings were entombed in the Marion Cemetery Receiving Vault. Once the Harding Memorial was completed in 1927, the bodies were reinterred in the Memorial's sarcophagus and it was sealed. Because Harding's reputation was damaged by personal controversies and presidential scandals, the Harding Memorial was not officially dedicated until 1931 when President

Herbert Hoover Herbert Clark Hoover (August 10, 1874 – October 20, 1964) was the 31st president of the United States, serving from 1929 to 1933. A wealthy mining engineer before his presidency, Hoover led the wartime Commission for Relief in Belgium and ...

presided.

Dedication

On June 16, 1931, President

gave a speech at the dedication ceremony of the Warren G. Harding memorial. The following are excerpts from Hoover's eulogy:

Oversight

The Harding Memorial Association transferred ownership of the Harding Memorial to the Ohio Historical Society (OHS) in March 1979, after passage of state legislation authorizing the takeover. OHS undertook a federally-funded, $538,000 restoration in 1988, and began to refer to the site as the Harding Tomb. Following a reduction in state funding, the Ohio Historical Society transferred day-to-day management of the tomb and the nearby Harding Home to Marion Technical College (MTC) in April 2010. OHS paid MTC $105,000 a year to run the two sites, achieving a savings of about $60,000 annually. MTC agreed to spend $20,000 in 2010 to help run the site. OHS continues to co-ordinate with MTC on major site issues.; The memorial is the last of the elaborate presidential tombs. This trend began with the burial of President

Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was the 16th president of the United States, serving from 1861 until Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, his assassination in 1865. He led the United States through the American Civil War ...

in his

tomb A tomb ( ''tumbos'') or sepulchre () is a repository for the remains of the dead. It is generally any structurally enclosed interment space or burial chamber, of varying sizes. Placing a corpse into a tomb can be called '' immurement'', alth ...

Springfield, Illinois Springfield is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Illinois. Its population was 114,394 at the 2020 United States census, which makes it the state's List of cities in Illinois, seventh-most populous cit ...

. Since Harding, presidents have chosen burial plot designs that are simpler or combined those with their library sites.

References

External links

Ohio History Connection Harding Memorial and Tomb Information
{{Authority control

Memorial A memorial is an object or place which serves as a focus for the memory or the commemoration of something, usually an influential, deceased person or a historical, tragic event. Popular forms of memorials include landmark objects such as home ...

Harding Memorial Tombs of presidents of the United States Henry Hornbostel buildings Buildings and structures completed in 1927 Buildings and structures in Marion, Ohio Ohio History Connection Tourist attractions in Marion County, Ohio National Register of Historic Places in Marion County, Ohio 1927 establishments in Ohio Burial monuments and structures in Ohio