The Statue of Liberty is
a colossal neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in New York Harbor, within
New York City. The copper-clad statue, a gift to the United States from the
people of France, was designed by French sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi
and its metal framework was built by Gustave Eiffel. The statue was dedicated
on October 28, 1886.
The statue is a figure of
a classically draped woman, likely inspired by the Roman goddess of liberty,
Libertas. In a contrapposto pose, she holds a torch above her head with her
right hand, and in her left hand carries a tabula ansata inscribed JULY IV
MDCCLXXVI (July 4, 1776, in Roman numerals), the date of the U.S. Declaration
of Independence. With her left foot she steps on a broken chain and shackle, commemorating
the national abolition of slavery following the American Civil War. After its
dedication the statue became an icon of freedom and of the United States, seen
as a symbol of welcome to immigrants arriving by sea.
The idea for the statue
was conceived in 1865, when the French historian and abolitionist Edouard de
Laboulaye proposed a monument to commemorate the upcoming centennial of U.S.
independence (1876), the perseverance of American democracy and the liberation
of the nation's slaves. The Franco-Prussian War delayed progress until 1875,
when Laboulaye proposed that the people of France finance the statue and the
United States provide the site and build the pedestal. Bartholdi completed the
head and the torch-bearing arm before the statue was fully designed, and these
pieces were exhibited for publicity at international expositions.
The torch-bearing arm was
displayed at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876, and in Madison
Square Park in Manhattan from 1876 to 1882. Fundraising proved difficult,
especially for the Americans, and by 1885 work on the pedestal was threatened
by lack of funds. Publisher Joseph Pulitzer, of the New York World, started a
drive for donations to finish the project and attracted more than 120,000
contributors, most of whom gave less than a dollar (equivalent to $35 in 2024).
The statue was built in France, shipped overseas in crates, and assembled on
the completed pedestal on what was then called Bedloe's Island. The statue's
completion was marked by New York's first ticker-tape parade and a dedication
ceremony presided over by President Grover Cleveland.
The statue was
administered by the United States Lighthouse Board until 1901 and then by the
Department of War; since 1933, it has been maintained by the National Park
Service as part of the Statue of Liberty National Monument, and is a major
tourist attraction. Limited numbers of visitors can access the rim of the pedestal
and the interior of the statue's crown from within; public access to the torch
has been barred since 1916.
Development –
Origin –
According to the National
Park Service, the idea of a monument presented by the French people to the
United States was first proposed by Edouard Rene de Laboulaye, president of the
French Anti-Slavery Society and a prominent and important political thinker of
his time. The project is traced to a mid-1865 conversation between Laboulaye, a
staunch abolitionist, and Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, a sculptor. In
after-dinner conversation at his home near Versailles, Laboulaye, an ardent
supporter of the Union in the American Civil War, is supposed to have said:
"If a monument should rise in the United States, as a memorial to their
independence, I should think it only natural if it were built by united
effort—a common work of both our nations. The National Park Service, in a 2000
report, however, deemed this a legend traced to an 1885 fundraising pamphlet,
and that the statue was most likely conceived in 1870. In another essay on
their website, the Park Service suggested that Laboulaye was minded to honor
the Union victory and its consequences, "With the abolition of slavery and
the Union's victory in the Civil War in 1865, Laboulaye's wishes of freedom and
democracy were turning into a reality in the United States. In order to honor
these achievements, Laboulaye proposed that a gift be built for the United
States on behalf of France. Laboulaye hoped that by calling attention to the
recent achievements of the United States, the French people would be inspired
to call for their own democracy in the face of a repressive monarchy.
According to sculptor
Bartholdi, who later recounted the story, Laboulaye's alleged comment was not
intended as a proposal, but it inspired Bartholdi. Given the repressive nature
of the regime of Napoleon Ill, Bartholdi took no immediate action on the idea
except to discuss it with Laboulaye. Bartholdi was in any event busy with other
possible projects. In 1856, he traveled to Egypt to study ancient works. In the
late 1860s, he approached Isma'il Pasha, Khedive of Egypt, with a plan to build
Progress or Egypt Carrying the Light to Asia , a huge lighthouse in the form of
an ancient Egyptian female fellah or peasant, robed and holding a torch aloft,
at the northern entrance to the Suez Canal in Port Said. Sketches and models
were made of the proposed work, though it was never erected. There was a
classical precedent for the Suez proposal, the Colossus of Rhodes: an ancient
bronze statue of the Greek god of the sun, Helios. This statue is believed to
have been over 100 feet (30 m) high, and it similarly stood at a harbor
entrance and carried a light to guide ships. Both the khedive and Ferdinand de
Lesseps, developer of the Suez Canal, declined the proposed statue from
Bartholdi, citing the high cost. The Port Said Lighthouse was built instead, by
Frangois Coignet in 1869.
Upon his return from
Egypt, Bartholdi visited a 76-foot Giovanni Battista Crespi's sculpture in
repousse copper covering an iron armature at Lago Maggiore in Italy, and was
familiar with the similar construction of the Vercingetorix monument by Aime
Millet; the restoration of Millet's statue a century later called international
attention to the Statue of Liberty's poor state. Copper was chosen over bronze
or stone due to its lower cost, weight, and ease of transportation.
Any large project was
further delayed by the Franco-Prussian War, in which Bartholdi served as a
major of militia. In the war, Napoleon Ill was captured and deposed. Bartholdi's
home province of Alsace was lost to the Prussians, and a more liberal republic
was installed in France. As Bartholdi had been planning a trip to the United
States, he and Laboulaye decided the time was right to discuss the idea with influential
Americans. In June 1871, Bartholdi crossed the Atlantic, with letters of
introduction signed by Laboulaye.
Arriving at New York
Harbor, Bartholdi focused on Bedloe's Island (now named Liberty Island) as a
site for the statue, struck by the fact that vessels arriving in New York had
to sail past it. He was delighted to learn that the island was owned by the
United States government—it had been ceded by the New York State Legislature in
1800 for harbor defense. It was thus, as he put it in a letter to Laboulaye:
"land common to all the states.' As well as meeting many influential New
Yorkers, Bartholdi visited President Ulysses S. Grant, who assured him that it
would not be difficult to obtain the site for the statue. Bartholdi crossed the
United States twice by rail, and met many Americans whom he thought would be
sympathetic to the project. But he remained concerned that popular opinion on
both sides of the Atlantic was insufficiently supportive of the proposal, and
he and Laboulaye decided to wait before mounting a public campaign.
Bartholdi had made a first model of his concept in 1870. The son of a friend of Bartholdi's, artist John LaFarge, later maintained that Bartholdi made the first sketches for the statue during his visit to La Farge's Rhode Island studio. Bartholdi continued to develop the concept following his return to France. He also worked on a number of sculptures designed to bolster French patriotism after the defeat by the Prussians. One of these was the Lion of Belfort, a monumental sculpture carved in sandstone below the fortress of Belfort, which during the war had resisted a Prussian siege for over three months. The defiant lion, 73 feet (22 m) long and half that in height, displays an emotional quality characteristic of Romanticism, which Bartholdi would later bring to the Statue of Liberty.
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