The Statue of Liberty (English Statue of Liberty, officially
Liberty Enlightening the World, also Lady Liberty; French La
Liberté éclairant le monde) is a neoclassical colossal statue
created by Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi near New York. Located on
Liberty Island in New York Harbor, it was dedicated on October
28, 1886 and is a gift from France to the United States. The
statue has been part of the Statue of Liberty National Monument
since 1924 and has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1984.
The statue depicts the robed figure of Libertas, the Roman
goddess of freedom. Standing on a massive base, the figure made
of a copper shell on a steel framework holds up a gilded torch
with the right hand and holds a tabula ansata in the left hand
with the date of the American Declaration of Independence. A
broken chain lies at her feet. The statue is considered a symbol
of liberty and is one of the most recognizable symbols of the
United States. With a figure height of 46.05 meters and a total
height of 92.99 meters, it is one of the tallest statues in the
world, until 1959 it was the tallest.
Bartholdi was
inspired by the French jurist and politician Édouard René de
Laboulaye, who had declared in 1865 that any monument erected to
honor American independence must be a joint project between the
peoples of France and the United States. Because of the tense
political situation in France, work on the statue only began in
the early 1870s. In 1875, Laboulaye suggested that the French
finance the statue and the Americans finance the pedestal and
provide the building site. Bartholdi completed the head and the
torch arm before the statue's final appearance was finalized.
These parts were presented to the public at exhibitions.
Financing initially proved to be difficult, especially on the
American side (for the base), so that work on the base was
threatened with being stopped in 1885 due to lack of money.
Joseph Pulitzer then ran his New York World newspaper to
fundraise for the completion of the project. The statue was
eventually prefabricated in France, shipped to New York in
disassembled pieces, and assembled on what was then known as
Bedloe's Island. President Grover Cleveland dedicated it on
October 28, 1886, on Bartholdi Day.
The United States
Lighthouse Board, the federal authority for lighthouses, was
responsible for maintenance and administration until 1901.
Subsequently, the Ministry of War took over these tasks. The
statue has been under the jurisdiction of the National Park
Service since 1933. In 1938 it was closed to the public for
renovation work for the first time. In the early 1980s, the
building fabric was so badly worn that a comprehensive
restoration was necessary. From 1984 to 1986 the torch and much
of the internal structure were replaced. The statue was
temporarily closed after the attacks of September 11, 2001 and
after Hurricane Sandy.
The idea for the Statue of Liberty project stems from a remark made
in 1865 by the French jurist and politician Édouard René de Laboulaye.
Speaking after a celebratory dinner at his home near Versailles, the
ardent supporter of the Union during the Civil War remarked: "Should
there be a monument erected in the United States to commemorate her
independence, I think it is only natural that it comes about through
combined forces – a joint work of our two nations.”
Laboulaye's
remark was not intended as a specific suggestion, but it did inspire the
sculptor Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi, who was present at the banquet as a
guest. In view of the monarchist state system of France under Emperor
Napoleon III, which was in stark contrast to the republican ideals of
the USA, Bartholdi took no further steps for the time being, apart from
discussing the idea with Laboulaye. Instead, he approached Ismail Pasha,
the Ottoman Khedive of Egypt, and presented him with a plan to erect a
lighthouse at Port Said, at the northern end of the Suez Canal, in the
form of a robed ancient fellah woman holding aloft a torch. Bartholdi
made sketches and models, but the statue was never erected. A classic
model for the Suez project was the Colossus of Rhodes. Said to be over
30 meters tall, this bronze statue of the Greek sun god Helios stood at
a port entrance and held aloft a torch to guide ships.
The
Franco-Prussian War, in which Bartholdi served as a major in the
militia, further delayed the American project. During the war, Napoleon
III. captured and deposed. Bartholdi's home region of Alsace was lost to
the German Reich and the more liberal Third Republic was formed in
France. Since Bartholdi had planned a trip to the United States anyway,
he and Laboulaye agreed that the time was right to pitch the idea to
influential Americans. In June 1871, Bartholdi traveled to New York with
a letter of introduction from Laboulaye. His gaze fell on Bedloe's
Island in Upper New York Bay. Every incoming ship had to pass through
this island, which is why it seemed a suitable location for a statue.
The island was ceded to the federal government by the New York State
legislature in 1800 so that defenses could be built there. In addition
to influential New Yorkers, Bartholdi also visited President Ulysses S.
Grant, who assured him that using the island as a building site would
not be a problem. Bartholdi traveled the United States by railroad and
met many people whom he felt were sympathetic to the project. However,
he was concerned that public opinion on both sides of the Atlantic was
not yet supportive enough, so he and Laboulaye decided not to launch a
public campaign.
Bartholdi made a first model of his concept in
1870. The son of the artist John La Farge later claimed that Bartholdi
drew the first drafts during his stay in the USA in his American
friend's studio in Rhode Island. After his return to France, Bartholdi
continued to develop his concept. He also worked on a series of
sculptures intended to strengthen French nationalism after the lost war.
One of these works was the Lion of Belfort, a monumental red sandstone
sculpture beneath the Belfort citadel. The well-fortified lion, 22
meters long and eleven meters high, embodies an emotionality typical of
Romanticism, which Bartholdi later transferred to the Statue of Liberty.
Bartholdi and Laboulaye discussed how best to implement the idea of
freedom. In early American history, there were two female figures as
cultural symbols of the nation. Columbia was considered the
personification of the United States, much like Marianne in France. She
had replaced the earlier character of a Native American princess, who
was now considered uncivilized and offensive to Americans. The other
major female figure in American culture was an embodiment of liberty,
derived from the liberty goddess Libertas, who was worshiped in the
Roman Empire, particularly by freed slaves. A figure of liberty adorned
most American coins of the period and influenced numerous works of art,
including Thomas Crawford's Statue of Freedom atop the Capitol dome. A
figure of liberty was also on the Great Seal of France.
Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century artists who sought to depict
republican ideals often resorted to an embodiment of liberty. However,
Bartholdi and Laboulaye avoided the image of revolutionary freedom, such
as that depicted in Eugène Delacroix's painting Liberty Leading the
People. In this painting, which evokes the French July Revolution of
1830, liberty, stripped and ready to use violence, leads an armed crowd.
Laboulaye had no sympathy for revolutions and therefore desired a fully
clothed figure in flowing robes. Instead of the violent impression in
Delacroix's work, Bartholdi wanted the statue to have a peaceful
appearance, which is why it should carry a torch as a symbol of
progress.
Crawford's statue originally wore a pileus, a headdress
worn by freed slaves in the Roman Empire. Secretary of War Jefferson
Davis, a Southerner and later President of the Confederate States, was
concerned that the pileus on the Statue of Freedom could be taken as a
symbol of abolitionism and ordered that it be replaced with a helmet.
Delacroix's figure of liberty also wore a pileus, and Bartholdi
initially considered equipping his own figure with one as well.
Eventually, however, he chose a crown for his headgear, thereby avoiding
an allusion to Marianne, who always wears a pileus. The seven-pointed
crown is borrowed from the gloriole of ancient Helios or Sol depictions.
It originally symbolized the sun, but here the seven seas and the seven
continents. Together with the torch they are to proclaim the message
that freedom illuminates the world.
Bartholdi's early models were
all conceptually the same: a neoclassical-style female figure,
representing liberty, wears a stole and pella (dress and cloak, common
in depictions of Roman goddesses) and holds aloft a torch. The face is
said to have been modeled after that of his mother, Charlotte Beysser
Bartholdi. Other sources identify Isabella Eugenie Boyer, wife of Isaac
Merritt Singer, as a model. Bartholdi designed the figure with an
expressive, uncomplicated silhouette. This should make her stand out
well against the harbor scenery and allow ship passengers to see her
from different angles as they approached Manhattan. He gave the
character classic contours and used a simplified way of modeling. In
doing so, he wanted to do justice to the immense dimensions of the
project and its solemn purpose. Bartholdi wrote about his technique:
“The surfaces should be clear and simple, defined by a bold and clean
design, accentuated where it matters. Avoid enlarging details or
duplicating them. By exaggerating the forms in order to make them more
clearly visible, or by enriching them with details, we would destroy the
proportions of the work. Finally, the model, like the design, should
have a summary character, as one would do with a quick draft. It is
necessary that this character be the product of volition and
observation, and that the artist, by concentrating his knowledge, find
form and line in their greatest simplicity.”
In addition to changing the statue's headgear, there were other
design changes as the project evolved. Bartholdi envisioned the statue
holding a broken chain, but found this could be divisive in the
post-civil war era. The statue actually rises above a broken chain, but
this is partially obscured by the robe and is difficult to see from the
ground. Bartholdi was initially undecided as to what the statue was
supposed to be holding in her left hand. He chose a tabula ansata as a
symbol of justice. Although he admired the United States Constitution,
he chose JULY IV MDCCLXXVI (July 4, 1776) for the inscription, thereby
associating the date of the Declaration of Independence with liberty.
Consultations with the foundry Gaget, Gauthier & Cie. made Bartholdi
come to the conclusion that the cladding should consist of copper
plates, which were hammered into the desired shape. An advantage of this
process was that the statue would be light in relation to its volume -
the copper only had to be 2.4 millimeters thick. Bartholdi specified a
height of 151 feet 1 inch (46.05 meters) for the statue. He managed to
get one of his former teachers, the architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc,
interested in the project. Viollet-le-Duc envisaged a brick pillar
inside the statue to which the cladding would be anchored.
By 1875 the political situation in France had stabilized and the
economy was recovering. Growing interest in the forthcoming Centennial
Exhibition in Philadelphia prompted Laboulaye to seek public support. He
presented the project in September 1875 and announced the formation of
the Franco-American Union, which would raise funds. With the
announcement, the statue was given a name, Liberty Enlightening the
World in English, or La Liberté éclairant le monde in French; both mean
translated: "The freedom, illuminating the world". The French should
finance the statue, the Americans the pedestal. The announcement drew a
generally positive response, although many French resented the United
States' lack of support during the war. French monarchists rejected the
statue, if only because the suggestion came from the liberal Laboulaye,
who had recently been appointed senator for life. Laboulaye organized
events to ensure the goodwill of the rich and powerful. This included a
special performance on April 25, 1876 at the Paris Opera of a new
cantata by Charles Gounod called La Liberté éclairant le monde.
Despite the initial focus on the elite, the Union managed to raise funds
from all walks of life; 181 French municipalities were also among the
donors. Laboulaye's political allies supported the cause, as did
descendants of the French contingents in the American Revolutionary War.
Contributions also came from less idealistic circles hoping for American
support in France's attempt to build a Panama Canal. The copper trading
company Japy Frères donated all the copper needed, worth 64,000 francs.
The copper is said to come from a mine near Visnes on the Norwegian
island of Karmøy, but this could not be determined with certainty.
Although the plans for the statue were not yet complete, Bartholdi
began working in the workshop of Gaget, Gauthier & Cie. to make the head
and the right arm with the torch. In May 1876 he traveled to the
Centennial Exhibition as a member of the French delegation and made
arrangements for a huge painting of the statue to be shown in New York
as part of the centenary celebrations. The arm did not arrive in
Philadelphia until August, so it was not listed in the exhibition
catalogue. While some accounts correctly identified the work, others
spoke of the "Colossal Arm" (Colossal Arm) or "Bartholdi's Electric
Light" (Bartholdi Electric Light). The exhibition grounds featured a
number of monumental works of art vying for visitors' attention,
including an oversized fountain by Bartholdi. Nonetheless, towards the
end of the exhibition, the arm proved a popular attraction, and visitors
climbed onto the torch's balcony to survey the grounds. After the
exhibition ended, the arm was transported to New York, where it was on
display in Madison Square Park for several years before being returned
to France to be affixed to the statue.
During his trip to the
United States, Bartholdi came into contact with various groups and urged
the formation of an American committee of the Franco-American Union.
Fundraising committees were formed in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia
to fund the foundation and pedestal. The New York group eventually took
on most of the fundraising responsibility and is often referred to as
the "American Committee." One of the members was Theodore Roosevelt,
then 19 years old, future Governor of New York and President of the
United States. On March 3, 1877, on the last day of his term, President
Grant signed a resolution authorizing the President to receive the
statue from France and designate a location. His successor, Rutherford
B. Hayes, followed Bartholdi's recommendations and chose Bedloe's
Island.
After returning to Paris in 1877, Bartholdi concentrated on
completing the head, which was shown during the 1878 Universal
Exposition. The fundraiser continued, including selling models of the
statue. Tickets to the workshop of Gaget, Gauthier & Cie. available
where visitors could view the work. The French government approved a
lottery. The prizes included a valuable silver plate and a terracotta
model of the statue. By the end of 1879 around 250,000 francs had been
raised.
The head and arm were made with the assistance of
Viollet-le-Duc. He died in September 1879, leaving no evidence as to how
he accomplished the connection between the copper cladding and the
proposed brick pier. The following year, Bartholdi managed to secure the
services of the innovative engineer Gustave Eiffel. He and his lead
designer, Maurice Koechlin, decided to abandon the pier and build an
iron-frame tower instead. Koechlin did not use a perfectly rigid
structure, otherwise stress would cause fractures in the copper
cladding. The statue should move easily with the wind and allow the
metal to expand in the summer heat. For this purpose he constructed a
network of smaller frame trusses, with which he connected the supporting
structure and the copper plates. These carriers had to be manufactured
individually in a laborious process. To prevent contact corrosion
between the copper cladding and the iron supporting structure, Eiffel
had the cladding insulated with asbestos that had previously been soaked
in shellac. Changing the material of the supporting structure from
masonry to iron allowed Bartholdi to change his plans for mounting the
statue. Originally, he intended to assemble the cladding in situ,
parallel to the erection of the brick pier. He then decided to
prefabricate the statue in France, ship it in pieces to the United
States, and have it reassembled on Bedloe's Island.
With this
construction, the statue became one of the earliest examples of a
curtain wall, in which the exterior of the structure supports only its
own weight and is supported by an internal framework. Eiffel added two
spiral staircases to make it easier for visitors to climb to the
viewpoint in the crown. Access to the viewing platform around the torch
was also provided, but the narrowness of the arm only allowed a narrow,
forty-foot ladder. Eiffel and Bartholdi carefully coordinated their work
so that completed parts of the cladding fitted exactly onto the
supporting structure.
At a ceremony on October 24, 1881, Levi P.
Morton, then American Ambassador to France, riveted the first copper
plate to the statue's big toe. The fairing was not made in exact order
from bottom to top. Work progressed simultaneously on different
segments, which often seemed confusing to visitors. Bartholdi gave some
orders to subcontractors, for example the fingers were made according to
his exact specifications in a coppersmith's shop in the southern French
town of Montauban. In 1882 the statue was completed to the waist; an
event Bartholdi celebrated by inviting journalists to a luncheon on a
platform inside the statue. Laboulaye died in May 1883 and was succeeded
as chairman of the French committee by Ferdinand de Lesseps, the builder
of the Suez Canal. The completed statue was presented to Ambassador
Morton at a ceremony in Paris on July 4, 1884, and Lesseps announced
that the French government would pay the cost of shipping it to New
York. When work on the pedestal was sufficiently advanced, the statue
was disassembled into its 350 individual parts and packed into 214
crates for transport and transported across the Atlantic on the
freighter Isere through stormy weather.
The American Committee encountered great difficulties in fundraising.
The economic depression that followed the founders' crash of 1873 lasted
for more than a decade. The Statue of Liberty wasn't the only project to
suffer from lack of funds; For example, work on the Washington Monument
dragged on for three and a half decades, with several interruptions.
There has been criticism of both Bartholdi's statue and the fact that
Americans had to pay for the pedestal for this gift. In the years
following the Civil War, the public preferred realistic artworks
depicting heroes and events in American history, as opposed to the
allegory that was to be depicted in the Statue of Liberty. There was
also the prevailing opinion that works of art in public spaces should be
designed by Americans. The fact that the Italian-born Constantino
Brumidi was commissioned to decorate the Capitol drew heavy criticism,
even though the artist had since become a naturalized artist. Harper's
Weekly magazine suggested that Bartholdi could have donated both the
statue and the pedestal, and the New York Times noted, "No true patriot
can countenance any such expenditures for bronze females in the present
state of our finances." (German: "No true patriot can approve of any
expenses for bronze women in the current state of our finances.") In the
face of this criticism, the American committee did little for several
years.
The foundation for Bartholdi's statue was to be set at
Fort Wood. This disused military base was built on Bedloe's Island
between 1807 and 1811. It had hardly been used since 1823, except during
the Civil War when the military ran a recruiting office there. The
tening of the fortress structure had the shape of an eleven-pointed
star. The base and pedestal were oriented to the southeast so that ship
passengers approaching New York Harbor from the Atlantic could see the
statue. In 1881, the New York Committee commissioned architect Richard
Morris Hunt to design the pedestal. Hunt provided a detailed plan and
estimated construction would take about nine months. He proposed
building the pedestal 114 feet (34.75 meters) high. Faced with funding
problems, the committee reduced the height to 89 feet (27.13 meters).
Hunt's base design incorporates elements of classical architecture,
including Doric portals. The great mass is fragmented with architectural
details, drawing attention to the statue. The base has the shape of a
truncated pyramid; the side length is 62 feet (18.90 meters) at the base
and 39.4 feet (12.01 meters) at the top. The four sides look identical.
Above the doors on each side are ten golden discs, on which, according
to Bartholdi's suggestion, the coats of arms of the then 40 states
should be placed, which ultimately did not happen. Above it is a balcony
framed by columns on each side. Bartholdi placed a viewing platform near
the top of the pedestal, over which the statue itself rises. According
to writer Louis Auchincloss, "craggily evokes the power of an ancient
Europe over which rises the dominant figure of the Statue of Liberty ").
The committee hired former Army General Charles Pomeroy Stone to oversee
the construction work. Construction of the 15-foot (4.57 meter) deep
foundation began on October 9, 1883, and the cornerstone was laid on
August 5, 1884. According to Hunt's original concept, the base was to be
solid granite. Financial considerations forced him to change his plan.
The final plan called for cement walls up to 6 meters thick clad with
granite blocks. The concrete mass produced was the largest in the world
up to that point. For this purpose, the German company Dyckerhoff in
Amöneburg delivered 8000 barrels of Portland cement.
Fundraising
for the statue began in 1882, and the committee organized a large number
of related events. Poet Emma Lazarus was asked to donate an original
work to one such event, an auction of artworks and manuscripts. She
initially refused on the grounds that she could not compose a poem about
a statue. At that time she was also involved in helping refugees fleeing
anti-Semitic pogroms in Eastern Europe. These refugees were forced to
live in conditions that the wealthy Lazarus had never experienced. She
saw a way to associate her compassion for the refugees with the statue.
This resulted in the sonnet The New Colossus, including the symbolic
lines "Give me your tired, your poor/Your huddled masses yearning to
breathe free" to breathe freely").
Even with these efforts,
donations remained lower than hoped. In 1884, Grover Cleveland, Governor
of New York, vetoed a $50,000 endorsement. A similar attempt in Congress
to allocate $100,000 (enough to complete the project) failed in 1885
when Democratic representatives disagreed with the transfer. The New
York committee, with just $3,000 in the bank, suspended work on the
plinth, putting the project in jeopardy. Groups in other American
cities, including Boston and Philadelphia, offered to pay the entire
construction cost in exchange for the statue being moved. Joseph
Pulitzer, editor of the New York World newspaper, announced a fundraiser
that would raise $100,000. He promised to publish the name of every
donor, no matter how small the amount of money donated.
As
donations began to flow in, the committee resumed work on the pedestal.
In 1885, New Yorkers displayed their renewed enthusiasm when the French
ship Isère, carrying the crates containing the statue's disassembled
parts, arrived in New York Harbor on June 17. Around 200,000 people
lined the docks and hundreds of ships set sail to welcome the Isère. On
August 11, 1885, after five months of daily fundraising, the New York
World announced that $102,000 had been raised from 120,000 donors and
that 80 percent of the total was made up of donations of less than a
dollar.
Despite the success of the fundraising campaign, the
pedestal was not completed until April 1886. Immediately thereafter,
assembly of the statue began. Eiffel's iron framework was assembled
inside the concrete base and anchored to steel girders. After that, the
copper plates were carefully attached. Because the base was too narrow,
scaffolding could not be erected, and the workers hung on ropes to
fasten the copper plates. However, there was no fatal accident.
Bartholdi had planned to install spotlights on the balcony of the torch,
covered in gold leaf, to illuminate it. A week before the inauguration,
the Army Corps of Engineers rejected this proposal, fearing that pilots
on passing ships would be blinded. Instead, Bartholdi had portholes cut
into the torch and housed the headlights inside. A small power station
was installed on the island for statue lighting and other electrical
needs. After the fairing was completed, Frederick Law Olmsted, the
planner of Central Park and Prospect Park, oversaw the cleanup of the
island.
The dedication ceremony took place on the afternoon of October 28,
1886. President Grover Cleveland, former governor of New York, was a
patron of the celebrations. A parade was held in New York in the
morning, the number of spectators is estimated at several hundred
thousand to one million. Cleveland led the parade and then took to the
stands to watch marching bands and marching bands from across the
country parade by. General Stone appeared as Grand Marshal of the
parade. The pageant route began at Madison Square, where the arm had
once been exhibited, and continued through Fifth Avenue and Broadway to
Battery Park on the southern tip of Manhattan. The pageant made a slight
detour down Park Row to pass New York World's headquarters. When passing
the New York Stock Exchange, traders threw strips of stock ticker paper
out of the windows, beginning the New York tradition of the confetti
parade.
The nautical parade started at 12:45 p.m. President
Cleveland boarded a yacht that took him to Bedloe's Island. On behalf of
the French committee, Ferdinand de Lesseps delivered the first speech,
followed by the chairman of the New York committee, Senator William M.
Evarts. A French flag was draped over the statue's face and was to be
removed to reveal it at the end of Evarts' speech. But Bartholdi
misunderstood a break as a conclusion and dropped the flag prematurely.
The cheering that ensued brought Evarts's speech to an abrupt end.
Cleveland spoke next, declaring, "A stream of light shall pierce the
darkness of ignorance and man's oppression until Liberty enlightens the
world." Bartholdi, seen near the podium, was asked to speak as well, but
he declined. Noted speaker Chauncey Depew concluded with an overly long
speech.
This ceremony was reserved for invited guests only, the
public was not allowed access to the island. The only women present were
Bartholdi's wife and Lesseps' granddaughter. Officials had feared women
could be injured in the crowd. Local suffragettes, offended by the
restriction, hired a boat and approached the island. The leaders of the
group made their own speeches, praising the embodiment of freedom in a
woman and calling for women's suffrage. An officially planned fireworks
display had to be postponed to November 1 due to bad weather.
Shortly after the dedication, the African-American newspaper Cleveland
Gazette demanded that the statue's torch not be lit until the United
States was indeed a free nation:
'Liberty enlightening the world',
indeed! The expression makes us sick. This government is a howling
farce. It cannot or rather does not protect its citizens within its own
borders. Shove the Bartholdi statue, torch and all, into the ocean until
the 'liberty' of this country is such as to make it possible for an
inoffensive and industrious colored man to earn a respectable living for
himself and family, without being 'ku-kluxed ', perhaps murdered, his
daughter and wife outraged, and his property destroyed. The idea of the
'liberty' of this country 'enlightening the world', or even Patagonia,
is ridiculous in the extreme.
"'Liberty illuminates the world,'
indeed! The expression disgusts us. This government is a screaming
farce. It cannot, or rather does not, protect its citizens within its
own borders. Throw the Bartholdi statue into the ocean, torch and all,
until the 'freedom' of this country is such that it is possible for a
staid and industrious black man to make a decent living for himself and
his family without being 'kukluxt 'Possibly being murdered without
shocking treatment of his daughter and wife and destruction of his
property. The notion that the 'freedom' of this country 'enlightens the
world', or even Patagonia, is profoundly ridiculous.”
– Cleveland
Gazette
When the torch was lit on the evening of the dedication, it was
barely visible from Manhattan. The New York World described the glow as
"more like a glowworm than a beacon". Bartholdi suggested gilding the
statue to increase light reflection, but this proved too expensive. The
United States Lighthouse Board, the federal agency responsible for
lighthouses, took over the statue in 1887 and promised to equip the
torch with equipment for increased luminosity. Despite these efforts,
the statue remained virtually invisible at night. When Bartholdi
returned to the United States in 1893, he proposed other measures, all
of which proved ineffective. He successfully lobbied for improved
lighting inside the statue so that visitors could better appreciate
Eiffel's design. In 1901, President Theodore Roosevelt, once a member of
the New York Committee, ordered the statue to be handed over to the War
Department because it had failed as a lighthouse. During the military
administration of Bedloe's Island until 1923, a unit of the Army Signal
Corps was stationed on the island, then military police.
The
statue quickly became a landmark. Accounts of immigrants arriving via
New York reported an uplifting feeling upon first seeing the statue. An
immigrant from Greece recalled:
“I saw the Statue of Liberty. And
I said to myself, 'Lady, you're such a beautiful! [sic] You opened your
arms and you get all the foreigners here. Give me a chance to prove that
I am worth it, to do something, to be someone in America.' And always
that statue was on my mind."
“I saw the Statue of Liberty. And I
said to myself, 'Lady, you are such a beauty! You opened your arms and
bring all foreigners here. Give me a chance to prove that I'm worth
doing to be someone in America.' And that statue has always been on my
mind.”
– A Greek immigrant
Originally the statue was a dull
copper colouration; shortly after 1900 a green patina spread due to
oxidation. First press reports about it appeared in 1902, four years
later it covered the entire statue. Convinced that the patina was a sign
of corrosion, Congress approved $62,800 to give the statue a thorough
paint over. Considerable public protests arose against the exterior
painting. The Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) examined the patina for
harmful effects and concluded that it tended to protect the cladding,
softening the contours and enhancing the statue's beauty. The statue was
then only given an interior coat of paint. The USACE also installed an
elevator to transport visitors from the base to the top of the pedestal.
On July 30, 1916, during World War I, German saboteurs bombed Black
Tom Peninsula in Jersey City, not far from Bedloe's Island (now part of
Liberty State Park). Around 1000 tons of ammunition, which was to be
shipped to Great Britain and France, exploded and seven people died. The
statue suffered minor damage, mostly to the torch arm, and was closed
for ten days. The cost of repairing the statue and the buildings on the
island was around $100,000. The narrow ascent to the torch was closed
for public safety reasons and has remained so to this day.
That
same year, Ralph Pulitzer, who had succeeded his father as editor of the
New York World, began a fundraising campaign. $30,000 was to be raised
for a lighting system to illuminate the statue at night. Pulitzer
claimed there were 80,000 donors, but the campaign fell short. A wealthy
patron secretly paid the difference, which was not revealed until 1936.
An underwater cable connected the island to the mainland power grid and
floodlights were placed along the walls of Fort Wood. Gutzon Borglum,
who later created Mount Rushmore, redesigned the torch, replacing in
large part the original copper with stained glass windows. On December
2, 1916, President Woodrow Wilson turned on the lights with a telegraph
button. She bathed the statue in radiant light. Electric lighting was
installed in the torch, and the statue could henceforth be seen from a
greater distance at night than during the day. During the opening, Ruth
Law flew past the statue in a "brilliantly lit" airplane that had the
word Liberty written in brightly lit letters.
After the United
States entered the war on April 6, 1917, the statue was frequently
featured on recruiting posters and Liberty Bond advertisements. It was
intended to draw the population's attention to the war goal of securing
freedom and to remind them that embattled France had given the USA the
Statue of Liberty. In 1924, President Calvin Coolidge, using the
authority granted by the Antiquity Act, designated Bedloe's Island, with
the Statue of Liberty, as a Statue of Liberty National Monument. The
only successful suicide occurred five years later: a man climbed out of
one of the windows in the crown and jumped down.
In 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave the responsibility for
the statue to the National Park Service (NPS). From 1937 the NPS was
responsible for all of Bedloe's Island. After the army left, the NPS
began converting the island into a park. The Works Progress
Administration (WPA) demolished most of the old buildings and flattened
and replanted the east end of the island. She also added granite steps
for a new public access to the statue from the rear. The WPA also
performed restoration work on the statue, temporarily removing the
crown's rays to replace its rusted supports. Rusted cast-iron steps in
the base and upper part of the staircase inside the statue have been
replaced with new ones made of reinforced concrete. Copper casings were
installed to prevent further damage from rainwater seeping through the
base. The statue was closed to the public from May to December 1938.
During World War II, the statue remained open to visitors, but was
not lit at night due to the blackout. The lights were turned on briefly
on December 31, 1943 and June 6, 1944 (D-Day) when the lights gave the
short-short-short-long signal, Morse code for V for Victory. sent. A
new, more efficient lighting was installed in 1944/45 and from May 8,
1945 (VE-Day) the statue was again illuminated after sunset. The lights
were only on for a few hours each evening; since 1957 the statue has
been continuously illuminated every night. In 1946, the public part
inside the statue was covered with a special plastic film so that
graffiti could be washed off.
In 1956, Congress voted to rename
Bedloe's Island 'Liberty Island'; a suggestion that Bartholdi had
already made. The law also created the conditions for funding an
immigration museum on the island. Supporters took this as approval for
the project, but the government delayed releasing the funds. President
Lyndon B. Johnson declared neighboring Ellis Island a part of the Statue
of Liberty National Monument in 1965. Finally, in 1972, the Immigration
Museum at the base of the statue opened with a ceremony presided over by
President Richard Nixon. Due to a lack of funds, the museum had to close
in 1991 after a new museum opened on Ellis Island.
In 1976, the
NPS installed a new lighting system to commemorate the United States
Bicentennial. The statue was the focus of Operation Sail, a regatta of
tall ships from around the world that sailed into New York Harbor on
July 4, 1976 and circumnavigated Liberty Island. The festival ended with
a big fireworks display near the statue.
During the planning for the statue's centenary in 1986, French and
American engineers studied the structure extensively. They concluded in
1982 that the statue needed a major restoration. The right arm had been
improperly attached to the main body. It swayed more and more in strong
winds, so there was a considerable risk of falling. In addition, the
head was mounted about 60 centimeters to the side from the center and
one of the rays bored a hole in the right arm when the statue moved in
the wind. The frame structure was severely corroded and around two
percent of the outer hull panels had to be replaced. While the problem
with the frame structure had been identified as early as 1936 when some
replacement cast-iron girders had been fitted, most of the corrosion was
hidden by layers of paint applied over the years.
In May 1982,
President Ronald Reagan announced the formation of the Statue of
Liberty-Ellis Island Centennial Commission, chaired by Chrysler Chairman
Lee Iacocca, to raise needed funds. The commission managed to raise more
than $350 million in donations. This fundraising campaign was one of the
first in which companies participated for marketing purposes (cause
marketing).
In 1983, American Express promoted itself by contributing
a penny to the renovation for every transaction made with a credit card.
That campaign alone raised $1.7 million.
In 1984, the statue was
scaffolded for renovations and closed to the public. The layers of paint
that had been applied to the inside of the copper siding for decades
were removed with liquid nitrogen donated by Union Carbide. Two layers
of coal tar, applied during the statue's construction to seal leaks and
prevent corrosion, were removed by the sodablasting process without
further damaging the copper. The soda required for this was provided by
Church & Dwight. An asbestos-based substance, which Bartholdi had
unsuccessfully used to prevent contact corrosion, hampered the
restorers' work. Workers inside the statue were required to wear
protective clothing with built-in respirators. Holes in the copper
cladding have been repaired and replaced with new copper where
necessary. The replacement trim was from the Bell Laboratories roof,
which had a similar patina; in exchange, the laboratory received parts
of the old fairing for testing purposes. It turned out that since the
1916 changes, water got into the torch, which is why it was replaced
with a copy. The restorers considered replacing the arm and shoulder,
but the National Park Service insisted that it be repaired.
The
restoration also included the replacement of the entire anchorage. The
puddled iron rods used by Eiffel were gradually removed. The new rods
that attach to the pylon are made of low-carbon stainless steel, and the
rods that now hold the brackets to the fairing are made of ferralium, an
alloy that flexes and returns to its original position slightly as the
statue moves. To prevent the beam and arm from touching each other, the
beam was reoriented by a few degrees. The lighting was also replaced
once more; since then, halogen lamps have been throwing rays of light
onto certain areas of the base, thereby emphasizing them. In place of
the inconspicuous entrance built in the 1960s in the base, there is a
wide portal with monumental bronze doors, which symbolically depict the
renovation. A modern elevator allows people with disabilities to access
the pedestal viewing area. There was also an emergency elevator that
reached up to the shoulder of the statue.
The July 3-6, 1986
celebrations for the reopening and centenary of the statue were called
Liberty Weekend. On July 4th a new edition of Operation Sail took place.
A day later, Ronald Reagan rededicated the statue in the presence of
French President François Mitterrand. The restoration project received
the 1987 Outstanding Civil Engineering Achievement Award from the
American Society of Civil Engineers.
Immediately after the
September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Liberty Island was closed to the
public. At the end of 2001, the island was allowed to be entered again,
but the pedestal and the statue remained a restricted area. Access to
the pedestal was allowed again as of August 3, 2004, but the National
Park Service has announced that visitors cannot be allowed inside the
statue for security reasons. The authority justified this measure with
the fact that in emergencies an evacuation would be associated with
difficulties.
Ken Salazar, Secretary of the Interior in Barack
Obama's administration, announced on May 17, 2009 that the statue would
reopen to the public on July 4 as a "special gift to America." Since
then, the number of visitors who were allowed to climb up to the crown
per day has been limited. After the 125th anniversary on October 28,
2011, the statue was closed for a year to accommodate a new staircase
system inside to meet modern safety requirements and allow more people
to visit the statue at the same time in the future. Just one day after
reopening on October 28, 2012, the statue had to be closed again due to
the effects of Hurricane Sandy. The statue itself was not damaged, but
parts of the infrastructure in the base were destroyed. The renovation
lasted until the following summer; On National Day, July 4, 2013, the
Statue of Liberty was reopened.
Admission to the Statue of Liberty National Monument is free. However, all visitors are dependent on using the ferries for a fee, as private ships and boats are not allowed to dock on the island. Since 2007, State Cruises has held the concession for transportation and ticketing. It replaced Circle Line, which had operated the ferry since 1953. The ferries that depart from Liberty State Park in Jersey City and Battery Park in Lower Manhattan both also operate via Ellis Island, so a round trip is possible. Visitors wishing to enter the pedestal must have an additional free entry ticket.
There are several plaques on and near the Statue of Liberty. A plaque
on the copper cladding just below the feet proclaims that the statue
represents liberty, designed by Bartholdi and manufactured by the Paris
company Gaget, Gauthier et Cie. was built. Another plaque, also
inscribed with Bartholdi's name, identifies the statue as a gift from
the people of France, honoring "the alliance of the two nations in the
attainment of United States independence" and confirming "their enduring
friendship" ("honors the Alliance of the two Nations in achieving the
Independence of the United States of America and attests their abiding
friendship”). A plaque from the New York committee commemorates the
fundraising campaign to erect the pedestal. The cornerstone also
features a tablet placed by the Freemasons.
Friends of the poet
Emma Lazarus donated a bronze plaque in her honor in 1903 with the poem
The New Colossus. It hung inside the base until it was renovated in
1986, and has since been housed in the base at the Statue of Liberty
Museum. It is complemented by a commemorative plaque donated in 1977 by
the memorial committee for Emma Lazarus, honoring the life of the poet.
At the west end of the island is a group of five statues by Maryland
sculptor Phillip Ratner. They honor those people closely associated with
the creation of the Statue of Liberty. Shown are the Americans Pulitzer
and Lazarus and the French Bartholdi, Laboulaye and Eiffel.
In
1984, UNESCO declared the Statue of Liberty a World Heritage Site. In
its statement of significance, UNESCO describes the statue as a
“masterpiece of the human spirit [… that] endures as a highly potent
symbol—inspiring contemplation, debate and protest—of ideals such as
liberty, peace, human rights, abolition of slavery, Democracy and
Opportunity" (German: "Masterpiece of the human mind [...] that is an
enduring powerful symbol for ideals such as freedom, peace, human
rights, abolition of slavery, democracy and opportunity and inspires
reflection, debate and protest") .
In 1985, the American Society
of Civil Engineers listed the Statue of Liberty as a Historic Civil
Engineering Landmark.
Due to the universal appeal of the Statue of Liberty's symbolism,
numerous replicas of various sizes have been created around the world
over the years. The best-known version in France, the country of origin,
is located in Paris at the western end of the Île aux Cygnes, a narrow
artificial island in the Seine near the Eiffel Tower. This character is
actually not a replica but the older sister of the New York lady. This
bronze statue, 11.5 m high and weighing 14 t, is a 1:4 scale cast of the
plaster model that Bartholdi had created in preparation for his main
work. The cast of the model was presented to France in Paris as Colonie
Parisienne as a token of gratitude and inaugurated by President Sadi
Carnot and the American Ambassador Whitelaw-Reid in Paris on July 4,
1889, on the anniversary of the United States' declaration of
independence. The statue was eventually erected in the virtual line of
sight of its counterpart in New York Harbor, four times its height.
There are two other smaller replicas of the statue in the French
capital; There are replicas in several other French cities, including
Bartholdi's hometown of Colmar since 2004. Also at the Pont de l'Alma in
Paris is the Flamme de la Liberté (Flame of Liberty), a 3.5m tall
replica of the Statue of Liberty's flame in gilded copper in life size
on a gray and black marble base. It was presented to the City of Paris
in 1987 as a thank you from the International Herald Tribune and various
donors.
One of the oldest replicas in the United States was made
around 1900, hung on the roof of the Liberty warehouse on Manhattan's
Lower East Side for decades, and has been on display outside the
Brooklyn Museum since the 1960s. The replica in front of the New
York-New York Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, which opened in 1997, is half
the height of the original.
Between 1949 and 1952, the Boy Scouts
of America donated approximately two hundred replicas to various
American states and cities as part of the patriotic campaign Strengthen
the Arm of Liberty. About half of these statues, which are around 2.5
meters high, have been preserved. The goddess of democracy erected in
1989 during the Tiananmen Square protests shared certain similarities
with the Statue of Liberty, but the builders deliberately chose not to
make an exact copy as it would have been too pro-American.
In
1992, on the 500th anniversary of the discovery of America, the artist
Hartmut Skerbisch erected a copy of the skeleton of the Statue of
Liberty that was identical in size and dimension in front of the
entrance to the Graz Opera as part of the Steirischer Herbst festival.
Only the torch was replaced by a sword, the tablet by an orb. The statue
retained the working title Lightsaber.
The Statue of Liberty is highly recognizable and for many people is a
symbol of the United States, similar to the Stars and Stripes or Uncle
Sam. This symbolism sometimes causes heated controversies, which rarely
concern the statue itself. Rather, it asks about the truthfulness of the
symbolism, which is either confirmed with the "American Dream" and the
openness of American society or rejected as hypocrisy. In the American
media, the Statue of Liberty is seen as the guardian of the values it
symbolizes. She is the subject of numerous caricatures worldwide, but
especially in her own country, in which she is shown with a different
facial expression, different poses or with different objects in her
hands.
The image of the Statue of Liberty adorns numerous
American stamps and coins. It appeared on centenary commemorative coins
in 1986, on the American Platinum Eagle in 1997, on the New York State
Quarters in 2001, and on the presidential dollar since 2007. The Statue
of Liberty torch is featured twice on the current $10 bill. Consumer
products such as Coca-Cola or chewing gum are often advertised with the
Statue of Liberty. Numerous institutions with a regional connection use
them as a figure of identification. From 1986 to 2000, for example, it
was featured on new New York State license plates. The New York Liberty
team of the Women's National Basketball Association not only takes its
name from the statue, but also features it in their logo, with the
flames of the torch resembling a basketball. The New York University
logo also includes the torch.
Numerous artists were inspired by
the Statue of Liberty, such as Andy Warhol. As in other forms of art,
the Statue of Liberty represents opposing political views in music.
Country singer Toby Keith sang about her in the song Courtesy of the
Red, White and Blue (The Angry American), a passionate and patriotic
commitment to the United States after the September 11, 2001 terrorist
attacks. This was offset by the album Bedtime for Democracy by the punk
band Dead Kennedys with a parodically drawn statue on the cover a
protest against the policies of the Reagan administration. In 1983,
magician David Copperfield made the disappearance of the Statue of
Liberty the highlight of his annual television show, The Magic of David
Copperfield.
The Statue of Liberty is used as a backdrop in
numerous films. An early example is Charlie Chaplin's The Immigrant
(1917). As a setting, the statue plays a role in the films Saboteurs by
Alfred Hitchcock (1942), Ghostbusters II (1989), Remo - Unarmed and
Dangerous (1985) and X-Men (2000). In science fiction films, the
statue's damage or destruction is often a symbol of hopelessness or the
end of civilization, as in Independence Day (1996), The Day After
Tomorrow (2004), and Cloverfield (2008). The film Planet of the Apes
(1968) is considered particularly defining for the genre, in which the
surviving hero finds the debris of the statue and realizes that he has
landed on future earth, which has been destroyed by humans. In 1979,
Robert Holdstock wrote about the Statue of Liberty in the Encyclopedia
of Science Fiction:
“Where would [science fiction] be without the
Statue of Liberty? For decades it has towered or crumbled above the
wastelands of deserted [E]arth—giants have uprooted it, aliens have
found it curious … the symbol of Liberty, of optimism, has become a
symbol of science fiction's pessimistic view of the future."
“Where would science fiction be without the Statue of Liberty? For
decades it loomed or crumbled over the wastelands of deserted Earth.
Giants uprooted them, aliens found them strange...the symbol of freedom,
of optimism, became a symbol of science fiction's pessimistic view of
the future.”
– Robert Holdstock