Statue of Liberty

The Statue of Liberty (Liberty Enlightening the World; French: La Liberté éclairant le monde) is a huge neoclassical sculpture of a woman wearing robes and a crown. It stands on Liberty Island, which is part of New York City, in New York Harbor. The statue is covered in copper. It was a gift to the United States from the people of France. French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi designed it, and Gustave Eiffel built its metal frame. The statue was dedicated on October 28, 1886.

The statue shows a woman in classic robes, inspired by the Roman goddess of liberty, Libertas. She holds a torch high above her head with her right hand. In her left hand she carries a tabula ansata, a tablet with the date JULY IV MDCCLXXVI (July 4, 1776, in Roman numerals). That is the date of the U.S. Declaration of Independence. Under her left foot lie a broken chain and shackle. These stand for the national end of slavery after the American Civil War.

In 1865, the French historian and abolitionist Édouard de Laboulaye suggested a monument for the coming centennial of U.S. independence in 1876. It would also celebrate American democracy and the freedom of the nation's enslaved people. The Franco-Prussian War delayed the project until 1875. Bartholdi finished the head and the torch arm first. These parts were shown at international fairs to gain support. The arm was displayed at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876, and then in Madison Square Park in Manhattan from 1876 to 1882. Raising money was hard, especially in the United States. Joseph Pulitzer of the New York World started a campaign to collect donations to finish the project.

The statue was built in France and shipped overseas in crates. It was then put together on the finished base on what was then called Bedloe's Island. To celebrate its completion, New York held its first ticker-tape parade. President Grover Cleveland led the dedication ceremony.

The statue became a symbol of freedom and of the United States. It was seen as a sign of welcome to immigrants arriving by sea. The United States Lighthouse Board looked after the statue until 1901, and then the Department of War did. Since 1933, the National Park Service has cared for it as part of the Statue of Liberty National Monument. It is a major tourist attraction. Small groups of visitors can climb to the rim of the base and into the crown. The torch has been closed to the public since 1916.

Development

The idea of a gift from the people of France to the United States was first suggested by Édouard René de Laboulaye, a French political thinker. In 1865, he talked about the idea with the sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, who liked it. Bartholdi did not start work right away. He made a first model of the statue in 1870. The Franco-Prussian War slowed the work down. Bartholdi chose copper because it was lighter and cheaper than bronze or stone. The statue was designed to hold a torch for progress and to wear flowing robes, so it looks peaceful. Its tablet shows the date of the Declaration of Independence, which links liberty to the nation's beginning. The engineer Gustave Eiffel designed the iron frame that holds up the copper skin.

In 1875, Laboulaye announced the project and began raising money. The French people paid for the statue. Americans were expected to pay for the pedestal. Raising money in the United States was slow at first. The newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer, of the New York World, ran a drive that collected many small gifts from ordinary people. The French ship Isère arrived in New York on June 17, 1885, carrying the statue in crates. The pedestal was finished in April 1886. The statue was then put back together on Liberty Island. The statue was dedicated on October 28, 1886, with President Grover Cleveland presiding. The poet Emma Lazarus wrote the sonnet "The New Colossus," which is now closely linked to the statue.

After dedication

When the torch was lit at the dedication, it gave off only a faint glow that was hard to see from Manhattan. The World called it "more like a glowworm than a beacon." Bartholdi's idea of covering the statue in gold was too expensive. The United States Lighthouse Board took over the statue in 1887, but it stayed nearly invisible at night. In 1901, President Theodore Roosevelt moved the statue to the War Department, since it had not worked well as a lighthouse. A unit of the Army Signal Corps was stationed on Bedloe's Island until 1923. Many immigrants who arrived in the late 1800s and early 1900s saw the statue as a sign of welcome. This feeling grew stronger when Ellis Island opened nearby. In 1903, Emma Lazarus's sonnet was placed on a plaque at the base. Starting shortly after 1900, a green patina, also called verdigris, spread over the copper. Congress approved repairs and painting, but many people strongly protested painting the outside. The Army Corps of Engineers found that the patina protected the copper, so the statue was painted only on the inside.

In 1916, during World War I, German saboteurs set off a disastrous explosion at Black Tom in Jersey City, New Jersey, near Bedloe's Island. The statue was slightly damaged and closed for ten days. The narrow way up to the torch was closed for safety reasons and has stayed closed since. That same year, Ralph Pulitzer, who had followed his father Joseph as publisher of the World, tried to raise money for lights to shine on the statue at night. Floodlights were installed. Gutzon Borglum, who later sculpted Mount Rushmore, redesigned the torch with stained glass. On December 2, 1916, President Woodrow Wilson turned on the lights. During the war, images of the statue were used on posters and in Liberty bond drives. In 1924, President Calvin Coolidge acted to make the statue a national monument.

In 1933, President Franklin Roosevelt moved the statue to the National Park Service, which then turned the island into a park. The Works Progress Administration tore down old buildings, built new steps, and repaired the inside of the statue. During World War II, the statue stayed open but was not lit at night, except for a few special moments such as D-Day. In 1956, Bedloe's Island was renamed Liberty Island by an Act of Congress. In 1972, a museum in the statue's base opened. In 1976, a new, powerful lighting system was installed for the American Bicentennial. Between 1982 and 1986, engineers found serious problems, including a loose right arm and corroded metal inside. President Ronald Reagan formed a commission to raise money, and workers repaired the statue during a closure in 1984.

Main article: Conservation-restoration of the Statue of Liberty

See also: Liberty Weekend

The statue reopened in July 1986 during "Liberty Weekend," which marked its centennial. After the September 11 attacks, the statue and Liberty Island were closed to the public. The pedestal reopened in 2004, but visitors could not go up into the statue. The statue closed in 2011 for new elevators and staircases. Hurricane Sandy damaged parts of both islands in 2012, and the statue reopened in July 2013. The statue has also closed during government shutdowns, a protest, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Construction on the new Statue of Liberty Museum began in 2016, and it opened on May 16, 2019.

Access and attributes

The statue stands in Upper New York Bay on Liberty Island, south of Ellis Island. Together, the two islands make up the Statue of Liberty National Monument. New York gave both islands to the federal government in 1800. An 1834 agreement, called a compact, set the state border at the middle of the bay. This means the original islands are still New York territory, even though they sit on the New Jersey side of the line. Liberty Island is one of the islands that are part of the borough of Manhattan in New York. Land added through reclamation to Ellis Island's original 2.3-acre (0.93 ha) island is New Jersey territory.

Entry to the national monument is free, but visitors must pay for the ferry, because private boats cannot dock at the island. In 2007, Statue City Cruises took over the ferry and ticket service from Circle Line, which had run it since 1953. Ferries leave from Liberty State Park in Jersey City and the Battery in Lower Manhattan. They also stop at Ellis Island when it is open. Everyone goes through a security check before getting on the boat. Climbing to the crown requires a special ticket. The balcony around the torch has been closed since the munitions explosion on Black Tom Island in 1916, but a webcam shows it live. Several plaques on and near the statue tell its story. One is a bronze tablet with a poem by Emma Lazarus called "The New Colossus."

Historical designations

In 1924, President Calvin Coolidge made the Statue of Liberty part of the Statue of Liberty National Monument. In 1965, the monument was expanded to include Ellis Island. The next year, the statue and Ellis Island were added together to the National Register of Historic Places. The statue was added on its own in 2017. In 1971, the monument was also added to the New Jersey Register of Historic Places. In 1976, it became a New York City designated landmark.

In 1984, the statue was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site. UNESCO called it a "masterpiece of the human spirit." It stands for ideas such as liberty, peace, human rights, the end of slavery, democracy, and opportunity. It has inspired people to think, talk, and speak up about important issues.

Measurements

Depictions

See also: Replicas of the Statue of Liberty and Statue of Liberty in popular culture

Many replicas of the Statue of Liberty can be seen around the world. The American community in Paris gave the city a smaller version, about one-fourth the height of the original. It stands on the Île aux Cygnes and faces west toward its larger sister. A 30-foot replica stood on top of the Liberty Warehouse in Manhattan for many years. It now belongs to the Brooklyn Museum. From 1949 to 1952, the Boy Scouts of America gave about two hundred replicas to towns and states across the country. This was part of their Strengthen the Arm of Liberty campaign. The Goddess of Democracy was set up for a time during the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. It was not an exact copy of the statue. It was inspired by French ideas about democracy, and its makers did not copy the statue directly. A replica is also part of the outside of the New York-New York Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. The statue has also appeared on American coins and stamps. These include commemorative coins for its 1986 centennial and New York's state quarters coin from 2001.

The statue has also appeared on the American Eagle platinum bullion coins from 1997. It is shown on the reverse side of coins in the Presidential Dollar series. It also appears in two images of the torch on the ten-dollar bill. A photo meant for a 2010 forever stamp showed the Las Vegas replica by mistake. Many groups have used the statue as a symbol too. From 1986 to 2000, New York State issued license plates with an outline of the statue. The Women's National Basketball Association's New York Liberty team uses its name and image in their logo. The New York Rangers of the National Hockey League showed its head on their third jersey starting in 1997. The National Collegiate Athletic Association's 1996 Men's Basketball Final Four was played at the Meadowlands Sports Complex in New Jersey. Its logo showed the statue. The Libertarian Party of the United States also uses the statue in its emblem.

The statue appears often in popular culture too. It is in Toby Keith's 2002 song "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American)." It is on the cover of the Dead Kennedys album Bedtime for Democracy. It also appears in movies such as Saboteur, directed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1942, Planet of the Apes, Independence Day, and Cloverfield. In Jack Finney's 1970 time-travel novel Time and Again, the statue plays an important part in the story. In 1979, Robert Holdstock, a consulting editor of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, pointed out how often the statue appears in science fiction.