This bronze bust of Abraham Lincoln, who was president from March 4, 1861 until his assassination on April 15, 1865, was created in the late nineteenth century by Augustus Saint-Gaudens. After Lincoln's assassination, the accomplished sculptor became one of many artists commissioned to create memorial portraits of the President. This bust is a replica of the full-size standing statue that Saint-Gaudens sculpted for Lincoln Park in Chicago, Illinois. Saint-Gaudens experimented with many stances and expressions before deciding to portray a pensive Lincoln. It was acquired for the White House Collection by the White House Historical Association in 1975.

This plan for the design of the National Mall was created by architects Daniel H. Burnham and Charles F. McKim, landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., and sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens in 1901 during Theodore Roosevelt's presidency. The Senate Park Commission undertook a project to design and redevelop the National Mall, eventually publishing the 1902 McMillan Plan, named for James McMillan, the Michigan senator who headed the commission. The McMillan Plan called for the construction of a Mall with a long expanse of grass 300 feet in width, major memorials at the southern and western ends of the Mall's axes, and a series of museums along the east-west axis.