The History Of The Statue Of Liberty: The Pride Of Nyc
In 1865, a young French sculptor named Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi thought it would
be a good idea for France to present America with a gift to commemorate the occasion. Bartholdi proposed a giant statue of some kind, and thought about it for the next six years.
By 1871, Bartholdi had most of the details worked out in his mind: the American monument would be a colossal statue of a woman called "Liberty Enlightening the World." It would be paid for by the French people, and the pedestal that it stood on would be financed and built by the Americans.
The idea excited him so much that he booked a passage on a ship and sailed to New York to drum up support for it. As he entered New York Harbor, Bartholdi noticed a small, 12-acre piece of land near Ellis Island, called Bedloe's Island.
Bartholdi spent the next five months traveling around the U.S. and getting support for the statue. Then he went back to France, where the government of Emperor Napoleon III (Napoleon Bonaparte's nephew) was openly hostile to the democratic and republican ideals celebrated by the Statue of Liberty.
Bartholdi went back to work. He founded a group called the Franco-American Union, comprised of French and American supporters, to help raise money for the statue.
He also recruited Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel, soon to become famous for the Eiffel Tower, to design the steel and iron framework to hold the statue up.
Raising the $400,000 he estimated was needed to build the statue in France wasn't easy. Work stopped frequently when cash ran out, and Bartholdi and his craftspeople missed deadline after deadline.
Then in 1880 the Franco-American Union came up with the idea of holding a "Liberty" lottery to raise funds. That did the trick.
In September 1884 work on the pedestal ground to a halt when the project ran out of money. An estimated $100,000 was still needed.
When it appeared that New York was coming up empty-handed, Boston, Cleveland, Philadelphia, and San Francisco began to compete to have the Statue of Liberty built in their cities. Furious, Joseph Pulitzer decided to try again.
In the two years since his first campaign, his newspaper's circulation had grown from a few thousand readers to more than 100,000. He hoped that now his paper was big enough to make a difference.
For more than five months, beginning on March 16, 1885, Pulitzer beseeched his readers day after day to send in what they could. No reader was too humble, no donation too small; every person who contributed would receive a mention in the newspaper.
"The statue is not a gift from the millionaires of France to the millionaires of America," he told readers, "but a gift of the whole people of France to the whole people of America. Take this appeal to yourself personally."
By now the race to fund the pedestal had captivated the entire country, and money really began to pour in. People sent in pennies, nickels and dimes, and they also began buying copies of the World each day to keep track of the race; by the time the dust settled, the World's circulation had exploded to the point that it was the most widely-read newspaper in the entire Western hemisphere.
On June 19, the fundraising passed the $75,000 mark; on July 22, the Isere arrived in New York Harbor and began unloading its cargo; bringing the excitement - and the giving - to its peak. Finally on August 11, Pulitzer's goal was met. "ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS! TRIUMPHANT COMPLETION OF THE WORLD'S FUND FOR THE LIBERTY PEDESTAL."
More than 120,000 people had contributed to the effort, for an average donation of about $0.83 per person. Work on the pedestal now moved at a steady clip; by April 1886 it was finished, and the pieces of the statue itself were put into place.
The internal steel and iron framework structure went up first; then the pieces of the statue's outer skin were attached one by one. Finally, on October 28, 1886, at a ceremony headed by President Grover Cleveland, the statue was opened to the public; more than ten years after the original July 4, 1876 deadline.
The statue was late - very late. But better late than never.
The statue is absolutely amazing, and remains one of the most interesting pieces of architecture in America. It is and forever will be a symbol of peace, hope, and acceptance.
by: Terry Daniels
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