The Surprising History of Lady Liberty
For over 100 years, the Statue of Liberty has stood as a testament to the United States’ proud ideals, as well as a symbol of New York City as the vibrant heart of this great nation. Its status as such was cemented at the turn of the last century, when the Statue was the first thing the masses of immigrants traveling to be processed on Ellis Island saw that stood proudly on the American soil which would soon welcome them with open arms. Experts currently estimate that nearly half of all American people descend at least in some part from the communities that passed by on these ships. Clearly, the Statue of Liberty deserves its exalted position as a facet of the collective American identity.
Therefore, you may be somewhat bemused to learn that the Statue is far from an exclusively American endeavor. In fact, the monument is actually a give from the French, proposed by a gentleman named Edouard de Laboulaye all the way back in 1865. A decade later, the famous sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi won the right to design it, with the desired date of completion being just a short two years later. One approved, the design’s execution became a joint endeavor by both the United States and France. The two allies titled the project, “Liberty Enlightening the World.”
Unfortunately, both countries quickly ran into funding troubles. The French employed a number of different tactics to raise money, including public fees, charging for government-sponsored entertainment, and a lottery. The United States mirrored those efforts with their own fundraising approach that included art exhibitions, auctions, and prizefights.
Bartholdi, who had designed the beautiful monument, also quickly embraced the fact that he would need significant help from an engineer to resolve any potential structural problems relevant to building such an enormous thing. The United States was responsible for building the pedestal, but they too had issues. Joseph Pulitzer gained fame for allowing the editorial pages of his widely circulated newspaper to encourage support for the project and condemn those who were not being active enough to resolve the financial shortfalls that were plaguing the project. Finally, in 1885, the fundraising goal was met. The project was completed the following year. In France, they had completed the Statue a little bit earlier, in the summer of 1884. Nearly exactly one year later, the Statue was on a ship from France bound for New York city. You may be surprised to learn the Statue was shipped in pieces and reassembled atop the pedestal over the course of four months. In October, 1886, President Grover Cleveland officially dedicated the Statue of Liberty in front of an enormous crowd of spectators.
