Harding Tomb
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The Harding Tomb is the burial location of the 29th President of the United States, Warren G. Harding and First Lady
Florence Kling Harding Florence Mabel Harding ( née Kling; August 15, 1860 – November 21, 1924) was the first lady of the United States from 1921 until her husband's death in 1923 as the wife of President Warren G. Harding. Florence first married Pete De Wolf ...
. It is located in Marion, Ohio. 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 Marion, Ohio, 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 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 In classical architecture, hypaethral describes an ancient temple with no roof. (From the Latin ''hypaethrus'', from Ancient Greek ὕπαιθρος ''hupaithros'' ὑπό hupo- "under" and αἰθήρ aither "sky, air".) It was described by the ...
) 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 The Marion Cemetery Receiving Vault is a funerary structure in the main cemetery of Marion, Ohio, United States. Constructed in the 1870s, this receiving vault originally fulfilled the normal purposes of such structures, but it gained prominence ...
. 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 presided.


Dedication

On June 16, 1931, President Herbert Hoover gave a speech at the dedication ceremony of the Warren G. Harding memorial. The following are excerpts from Hoover's eulogy: – President Woodrow Wilson appointed Hoover to head the Food and Drug Administration in April 1917 during World War I. This is the department to which Hoover refers when he states he first met Harding in his "office".


Oversight

The Harding Memorial Association transferred ownership of the Harding Memorial to the Ohio Historical Society (OHS) in the 1980s. OHS undertook a restoration in the mid-1980s and began to refer to the site as the Harding Tomb, a better description of its function. Following a reorganization, the Ohio Historical Society transferred day-to-day management of the memorial, and the
Harding Home The Harding Home is a historic house museum at 380 Mount Vernon Avenue in Marion, Ohio. It was the residence of Warren G. Harding, twenty-ninth president of the United States. Harding and his future wife, Florence, designed the Queen Anne Style ...
, to
Marion Technical College Marion Technical College, (Marion Tech or MTC) is a public technical college in Marion, Ohio. It shares a campus with Ohio State University at Marion. Founded in 1970 with classes beginning in 1971, MTC has awarded over 7,500 associate degrees ...
(MTC) from 2011-2019. This arrangement reduced OHS's administrative burden while allowing MTC to attend to the site. OHS retained ownership and co-ordinated with MTC on major site issues. However, OHS reclaimed day-to-day management in 2019 in conjunction with the new Harding Presidential Center that was being constructed in Marion. The memorial is the last of the elaborate presidential tombs, a trend that began with the burial of President Abraham Lincoln in his tomb in
Springfield, Illinois Springfield is the capital of the U.S. state of Illinois and the county seat and largest city of Sangamon County. The city's population was 114,394 at the 2020 census, which makes it the state's seventh most-populous city, the second largest o ...
. Since President
Calvin Coolidge Calvin Coolidge (born John Calvin Coolidge Jr.; ; July 4, 1872January 5, 1933) was the 30th president of the United States from 1923 to 1929. Born in Vermont, Coolidge was a History of the Republican Party (United States), Republican lawyer ...
, Harding's successor, presidents have chosen burial plot designs that are simpler or combined those with their library sites.


See also

*
List of burial places of presidents and vice presidents of the United States Burial places of presidents and vice presidents of the United States are located across 23 states and the District of Columbia. Since the office was established in 1789, 45 people have served as President of the United States. Of these, 39 have d ...


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 or works of a ...
Harding Memorial The Harding Tomb is the burial location of the 29th President of the United States, Warren G. Harding and First Lady Florence Kling Harding. It is located in Marion, Ohio. Also known as the Harding Memorial, it was the last of the elaborate pre ...
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