The Statue of Liberty: America's Symbol of Freedom

Origins: The Vision of Two Men, Built in Two Countries

Contrary to popular belief, the Statue of Liberty was not a gift from France to the United States to commemorate the centennial (one hundred year anniversary) of the United States’ founding. Instead, the statue was the brainchild of French statue maker Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi along with his friend Édouard de Laboulaye. While it was originally intended to commemorate the centennial of the U.S., building the statue was a joint effort between the two countries that took ten years longer than everyone anticipated.

Bartholdi had originally meant for the statue to be built for Egypt. The Frenchman had visited Egypt as a young man and he was impressed by the Egyptians’ work in building the Suez Canal, which would connect the Mediterranean to the Red Sea. Thus, when Bartholdi met with Egyptian leader Khedive at the Paris World’s Fair in 1867, he proposed the idea of the statue of a woman holding a lamp and wearing the dress of a fellah, or slave. This statue would stand at the entrance of the Suez Canal and would serve as a lighthouse for ships.

However, Bartholdi’s idea fell through, which meant that he would have to look elsewhere to build his statue. Undeterred by his failure to build the statue in Egypt, Bartholdi left for the United States, hoping to find inspiration and a new opportunity to realize his dream.

When Bartholdi’s friend, French poet and author Édouard de Laboulaye proposed the idea of building a monument in honor of the United States centennial anniversary, Bartholdi, who had been inspired by his trip to the U.S, set to work designing the Statue of “Liberty Enlightening the World.” A number of influential people on both sides of the Atlantic were intrigued by their idea. It was finally agreed on: the Statue of Liberty would be built in France, while her pedestal would be built in the United States.

Ideas can be Expensive

The building of the Statue of Liberty was not without its problems, not the least of which was trying to find the funding to build the statue in the first place. In France, there were various means of raising money to finance the statue, including public funds, various forms of entertainment, and a lottery. Laboulaye also had many connections among the wealthy in France, which he used to raise even more money.

Meanwhile in the United States, a lack of interest was proving to be a difficult obstacle in financing the building of the statue’s base. A group called the American Committee of the Statue of Liberty had been formed to raise the money to build the base, but it fell short of the funds needed by more than a third. The situation was getting so desperate that other cities in the U.S. including Boston, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Baltimore were offering to fund the building of the base in exchange for relocating the statue to their city. In such desperate times, famous newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer decided to step up 
to help raise additional funds. 

Pulitzer used his newspaper The New York World as a single source for a type of crowd funding. Every day between March and August of 1885, the paper kept a list of everyone who donated money to the Liberty Fund. Everyone from rich donors who gave thousands of dollars to children who gave pennies had their names published in the World. Eventually, Pulitzer’s crowd-funding campaign raised enough money for the pedestal, and the statue, to be raised in New York.

The Final Stages: Building and Moving the Statue

While the issues with funding were hard to overcome, there were also challenges with building such a large structure as the statue which faced Bartholdi. Famed designer Alexandre Gustave Eiffel, designer of the Eiffel tower, was commissioned to help build the iron pylon along with the secondary skeletal framework that allows the statue’s copper skin to move while still standing upright. 

In spite of a number of delays, the statue was eventually finished. Lady Liberty was broken down into 350 individual pieces, packed into 214 crates, and shipped from France to New York. It was erected on Bledoe Island, which was re-named Liberty Island in honor of the statue. U.S. president Grover Cleveland oversaw the Statue of Liberty’s dedication in front of thousands of people on October 28^th 1886, ten years after the centennial anniversary.

The Statue of Liberty has stood as a beacon of freedom to those entering New York harbor since that time, and has endured as a symbol of freedom in the United States.

Fun Facts: Statue of Liberty Trivia

• Alexandre Eiffel donated his fees for helping to design the statue, essentially working for free.
• Bartholdi also planned to have the statue covered in gold to make it a better lighthouse.
• Thomas Edison proposed a "monster disc" inside the statue so that it could appear to talk.
• The statue used to be the color of a penny. It took 20-30 years for her to patina to her current blue-green color.

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Brett is the founder of LingoMetro and lives in Seattle with his wife and his cat, Tippee.