Forty-five feet below the Lincoln Memorial is art of a very different kind. On the pillars in the memorial's basement, where a visitor center is now under construction, is graffiti left behind by the workers who built the memorial to Abraham Lincoln more than a century ago. There are carpenters' pencil drawings of a figure resembling President Woodrow Wilson, who was in office during the memorial's construction, as well as the cartoon characters Mutt and Jeff, per the Washington Post. But there's also a rather "sexy" drawing thought to depict a scandalous figure, per the New York Post.
The drawing shows the profile of a woman with dark makeup and a cigarette dangling from her lips. Just beside it is the word "Vamp"—a clue to who this woman is. She's believed to be Theda Bara, a silent film star who popularized the image of a woman who seduces and exploits men. In a breakthrough role in 1915's A Fool There Was, Bara played a character called "The Vampire," later shortened to "Vamp," who lured a prosperous attorney away from his family. She also had seductive roles in The Devil's Daughter, Sin, and The Vixen, and came to be seen as "the arch-symbol of forbidden sex," according to biographer Roy Liebman.
Though it's unclear when the drawing was made, A Fool There Was was released in the same year workers finished pouring the undercroft's foundational pillars, per the Washington Post. "I'd make the case that some lovesick laborer working on the Lincoln Memorial goes to the movies and sees The Vamp, then in a quiet moment in the undercroft the next day draws a picture of her and labels it accordingly," National Mall and Memorial Parks rep Mike Litterst tells the outlet. Copies of some of the undercroft's graffiti will likely be displayed in the new visitor center beneath the memorial, to be completed by July 2026. (More Lincoln Memorial stories.)
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
