"The Two Sisters"
America probably could not have won its freedom from the British
during the American Revolution without the help of the French. France
provided arms, ships, money, and men to the American colonies. Some
Frenchmen - most notably the Marquis de Lafayette, a close friend of
George Washington - even became high-ranking officers in the American
army. It was an alliance of respect and friendship the French would not
forget.
Almost 100 years later, in 1865, according to Frederic-Auguste
Bartholdi, a successful 31-year-old sculptor, several French
intellectuals opposed to the oppressive regime of Napoleon III were at a
small dinner party discussing their admiration for America's success in
establishing a democratic government and abolishing slavery at the end
of the Civil War. The dinner was hosted by Edouard Rene Lefebvre de
Laboulaye. Laboulaye was a scholar, jurist, abolitionist and a leader of
the "liberals," the political group dedicated to establishing
a French republican government modeled on America's constitution.
During the evening, talk turned to the close historic ties and love
of liberty the two nations shared. Laboulaye noted there was "a
genuine flow of sympathy" between the two nations, and called
France and America "the two sisters."
As he continued speaking, reflecting on the centennial of American
independence only 11 years in the future, Laboulaye commented,
"Wouldn't it be wonderful if people in France gave the United
States a great monument as a lasting memorial to independence and
thereby showed that the French government was also dedicated to the idea
of human liberty?"
Laboulaye's casual question struck a responsive chord in Bartholdi.
Years later, recalling the dinner, Bartholdi wrote that Laboulaye's idea
"interested me so deeply that it remained fixed in my memory."
So was sown the seed of inspiration that would become the Statue of
Liberty.
"To the sculptor form is everything and is nothing. It is
nothing without the spirit - with the idea it is everything."
- Victor Hugo, May 13, 1885
Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi
The sculptor who designed the Statue of Liberty, Frédéric-Auguste
Bartholdi, was born into a well-to-do middle-class family in Colmar,
France, on August 2, 1834.
Bartholdi's father, a civil servant and prosperous landowner, died
when the child was only two years old, so he was raised by his stern,
possessive mother, Charlotte.
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Many people believed Charlotte Bartholdi (1801-1891) was the model for
the statue. Others thought it was based on her son's early drawings for
a never-commissioned statue in Egypt. The sculptor's true inspiration
for his masterpiece remains a mystery.
Bartholdi began his career as a painter, but it was as a sculptor
that he was to express his true spirit and gain his greatest fame. His
first commission for a public monument came to him at the young age of
18. It was for a statue of one of Colmar's native sons, General Jean
Rapp, one of Napoleon Bonaparte's generals. Even at 18, Bartholdi loved
bigness. The statue of the general was 12 feet tall and was removed from
Bartholdi's studio with only one inch to spare. The statue established
his reputation as a sculptor of note and led to commissions for similar
oversized patriotic works.
A man of his time, Bartholdi wasn't alone in his passion for art on a
grand scale. During the 19th century, large-scale public monuments were
an especially popular art form. It was an age of ostentation, largely
inspired by classical Greek and Roman civilizations. Most monuments
reflected either the dress or architecture of these ancient times, so
the artistic style of the 19th century came to be known as neoclassical.
However, it was a trip to Egypt that was to shift his artistic
perspective from simply grand to colossal. The overwhelming size and
mysterious majesty of the Pyramids and the Sphinx were awesome to the
enthusiastic young Bartholdi. He wrote, "Their kindly and impassive
glance seems to ignore the present and to be fixed upon an unlimited
future."
While visiting Egypt, Bartholdi met a fellow Frenchman with ideas as
big as his own, who was to become his friend for life. Count
Ferdinand-Marie de Lesseps dreamed of piercing the desert with a canal
that would run from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea. While others first
laughed at de Lesseps, Bartholdi was inspired by the magnitude of the
idea. As a sculptor, he envisioned a giant lighthouse standing at the
entrance to de Lesseps's canal. It would be patterned after the Roman
goddess Libertas, and twice the size of the Sphinx.
In 1867, when de Lesseps's idea, the Suez Canal, was nearing
completion, Bartholdi drew up plans for his statue. It was to be in the
form of a robed female Egyptian peasant, a falaha, with light
beaming out from both a headband and a torch thrust dramatically upward
into the skies. Its theme? "Progress" or "Egypt Carrying
the Light to Asia." (Years later, Bartholdi denied any association
between "Progress" and the final design for the Statue of
Liberty.) Bartholdi presented his plans for "Progress" to the
Egyptian ruler, Isma'il Pasha, in 1867 and, with revisions, again in
1869. But the project was never commissioned.
In 1870, with the beginning of the Franco-Prussian War, Bartholdi
temporarily changed careers; he became a major in the French army and
was stationed in his home city of Colmar. When the Germans annexed the
entire Alsace region, making its residents German citizens, the reality
of the word "liberty" took on a new, personal meaning for
Bartholdi.
In time, France's Third Republic, patterned somewhat after the
democratic government of the United States, would emerge out of the
ruins of the Franco-Prussian War. Meanwhile, partially as propaganda to
advance the cause of those who were seeking the creation of a French
republic, Laboulaye suggested that Bartholdi should travel to America.
In recalling his conversation with Laboulaye several years later,
Bartholdi wrote: " 'Go to see that country,' said he [Laboulaye] to
me. 'Propose to our friends over there to make with us a monument, a
common work, in remembrance of the ancient friendship of France and the
United States. If … you find a plan that will excite public
enthusiasm, we are convinced that it will be successful on both
continents, and we will do a work that will have far-reaching moral
effect.' "
Bartholdi responded, "I will try to glorify the Republic and
Liberty over there, in the hope that someday I will find it again
here."
So, armed with letters of introduction from Laboulaye to some of
America's most influential men, Bartholdi sailed aboard the Pereire
from Le Havre, France, for New York on June 8, 1871. He was now to
become a salesman as well as a soldier and visionary sculptor.
He found the perfect spot for his monument to independence even
before he landed on America's shores. Writing of his entrance into New
York Harbor, he said:
"The picture that is presented to the view when one arrives
in New York is marvelous, when, after some days of voyaging, in the
pearly radiance of a beautiful morning is revealed the magnificent
spectacle of those immense cities [Brooklyn and Manhattan], of those
rivers extending as far as the eye can reach, festooned with masts and
flags; when one awakes, so to speak, in the midst of that interior sea
covered with vessels … it is thrilling. It is, indeed, the New World,
which appears in its majestic expanse, with the ardor of its glowing
life."
New York was the perfect locale, he added, since it was "where
people get their first view of the New World." Continuing, he said,
"I've found an admirable spot. It is Bedloe's Island, in the middle
of the bay.… The island belongs to the government; it's on national
territory, be-longing to all the states, just opposite the Narrows,
which are, so to speak, the gateway to America."
Intelligent and articulate, persuasive and charming, Bartholdi's
silver tongue and personal warmth were major assets as he met many
prominent American figures of the day, President Ulysses S. Grant, Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow, Horace Greeley, and Senator Charles Sumner among
them.
His trip across America, like his trip to Egypt, filled him with
amazement. He was stunned by the vastness of the prairies, the soaring
spectacle of the Rockies, and the awesome sight of the Pacific Coast
redwood forests. On his way home to France he wrote, "Everything in
America is big.… Here, even the peas are big."
Everywhere he went, he carried a sketch of the statue as it would
appear on the island in New York Harbor; he also had a small model of it
with him. And, everywhere he went, he enthusiastically promoted the
project. Americans seemed receptive to the idea of a statue dedicated to
"Liberty Enlightening the World" (the official name for the
statue), but no one was willing to make a commitment of money or a
building site.
Meanwhile, back in France, Laboulaye was biding his time. He realized
that it would be premature to publicize the idea of the statue until the
Third Republic became a reality. On his return to France, Bartholdi
completed other projects, including the monument of the Marquis de
Lafayette that was presented to the city of New York as a gift from
France in 1876. At the same time he refined his ideas and design for
"the American statue."
In 1874, with the establishment of the Third Republic, Laboulaye and
Bartholdi agreed that "the lady's" time had come. Because the
statue would be prohibitively expensive to produce, they decided its
cost should be shared: France would pay for the statue; America would
pay for its pedestal and foundation. A fund-raising committee called the
Franco-American Union was formed, with members from both nations.
An appeal for funds to underwrite the cost of creating the statue was
launched in French newspapers in September 1875. The committee's goal
was to present the Statue of Liberty to the United States on July 4,
1876, in honor of America's centennial.
Elaborate fundraising events were staged: a banquet at the Grand
Hotel de Louvre in November 1875; a gala benefit performance of a new Liberty
Cantata by French composer Charles Gounod at the Paris Opera. But
money was slow in coming. Enough was collected to begin work on the
statue, but the goal of completing it in time for America's 100th
anniversary was impossible.
Work Begins
Bartholdi selected Caget, Gauthier and Company as his workshop. Its
craftsmen were experts in the art of repoussé, a technique for creating
sculptural forms by hammering sheet metal inside molds. (Both stone and
bronze had been discounted as materials due to their weight and
expense.) Lighter than cast metal, repoussé was the only method
available that would allow such a monumental work to be shipped
overseas.
The intricate skeleton for the statue was to be designed by famed
engineer Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel, already known
for his brilliant iron railroad bridges, and later celebrated for the
Eiffel Tower.
Bartholdi decided that if the statue could not be completed in time
for America's centennial celebration, at least the raised arm and torch
could be finished for showing at the International Centennial Exhibition
in Philadelphia. While 300,000 Frenchmen paid to watch the work in
progress, 20 men worked 10 hours a day, 7 days a week, to meet the
deadline. But, even with "overtime," the section was not
finished in time for the opening of the exhibition, although it did
arrive in the fall, before the fair closed.
Bartholdi was chosen as an official French representative to the
Centennial Exhibition. Two of his works were to be shown, the statue of
Lafayette (which was not actually unveiled until September 1876) and a
monumental fountain, which was prominently placed in front of the main
exhibition hall.
On July 4, 1876, Bartholdi somewhat superstitiously traveled to
Bedloe's Island, the site he had already chosen for his statue. While
there, he remarked that it would be nice if the island were called
Liberty Island. (Eighty years later, in 1956, the name of Bedloe's
Island was officially changed to Liberty Island.)
The 30-foot arm of Liberty finally arrived in Philadelphia in August
1876. For 50 cents, a visitor could climb a steel ladder leading to the
balcony surrounding the torch. This unique experience created a good
deal of enthusiasm for the project, since Liberty would be the first
statue one could climb inside.
With three major pieces on view at the Centennial Exhibition,
Bartholdi's name as a sculptor was becoming known in America.
The visit was also to become memorable on a more personal level.
During a trip to Montreal, the sculptor renewed his acquaintance with
Jeanne-Emilie Baheux de Puysieux, a woman he had first met at the home
of his good friend John La Farge. On December 20, 1876, Frédéric-Auguste
and Jeanne-Emilie were married.
Returning to France, Bartholdi set himself a new goal: to complete
the statue's head for the opening of the Paris World's Fair in May 1878.
Unfortunately, Liberty was to be a lady who was always late. The
gleaming copper head was not finished until June. When her head finally
did appear at the fair, "My daughter Liberty," as Bartholdi
had begun calling her, was a sensation. But she wasn't sensational
enough to solve the never-ending problem of raising the money needed to
complete her construction. Finally, someone with the Franco-American
Union had an inspiration; they would hold a lottery to raise funds.
Fundraising in France
Since very few contributions for building the statue were coming from
France's moneyed elite, the idea of engaging the public's attention with
a lottery was a brilliant one. The prizes were substantial: a silver
plate set worth 20,000 francs (about $20,000); jewelry fashioned from
pearls and gems, worth 5,000 francs; plus two works by Bartholdi, a
terra cotta copy of a statue honoring the military engineer the Marquis
Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban, and a painting called The Wave.
Additional funds were raised in a manner worthy of contemporary
merchandising techniques: a signed and numbered collection of clay
models entitled "Models of the Committee," bearing the
Franco-American Union's seal, were sold for 1,000 francs each in France
and for $3,000 each in America. The buyer's name could be engraved in
the clay before the statue was baked.
By the end of 1879, about 250,000 francs had been raised for the
statue's construction. Enough, most people thought, to complete the
work.
Fini!
On October 24, 1881, the American ambassador to France, Levi P.
Morton, drove the first rivet into the statue, an event that attracted
international attention. By December, Bartholdi wrote his American
compatriots that "The statue commences to reach above the houses,
and next spring one will see it overlook the entire city."
In the winter of 1883 Laboulaye died, never to see his dream come to
life.
At last, in June 1884, Liberty received her final touches. She was
dedicated with much pomp and circumstance by French Prime Minister Jules
Ferry and Ambassador Morton. But when Bartholdi invited the celebrating
party to join him in climbing the statue's steps, few accepted the
challenge.
Until the spring of 1885, when she was dismantled for the long voyage
to America, Liberty remained in Paris, the hostess to thousands of
French visitors.
All the while, Bartholdi assumed that the statue's base was also
nearing completion. He assumed too much.
Fund-raising in the United States
While construction of the statue was nearing completion in France,
little was happening on the American side of the Atlantic.
The American press continued to be critical of the project,
especially of its cost. They simply couldn't understand why the pedestal
for the statue should cost as much as the statue itself. Congress
rejected a bill appropriating $100,000 for the base. New York did
approve a grant of $50,000, but the expenditure was vetoed by the
governor.
Many Americans outside of New York considered it New York's statue.
"Let New York pay for it," they said, while America's newly
rich self-made millionaires were saying and contributing nothing. The
American half of the Franco-American Union, led by William M. Evarts,
held the usual fund-raising events, but public apathy was almost as
monumental as the statue itself.
By 1884, after years of fund-raising, only $182,491 had been
collected, and $179,624 had been spent. It took the intervention of
Joseph Pulitzer and the power of the media to make a difference.
Pulitzer to the Rescue
Joseph Pulitzer was a Hungarian immigrant who fought in the Civil
War, be-came a successful journalist, and married a wealthy woman. In
1883, when he bought a financial newspaper called the World, he
already owned the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. When he heard that the
Statue of Liberty was about to die from lack of funds, he saw his chance
to take advantage of three distinct opportunities: to raise funds for
the statue, to increase his newspaper's circulation, and to blast the
rich for their selfishness.
Pulitzer set the fund-raising goal of the World at $100,000.
In its pages he taunted the rich (thereby increasing the paper's
circulation among working-class people) and firmly planted the notion
that the statue was a monument not just for New York City but, indeed,
for all of America.
Perhaps Pulitzer's cleverest ploy was the promise to publish the name
of every single contributor in the pages of the World, no matter
how small the contribution. The editorial that opened the fund-raising
campaign set its tone. He wrote: "The World is the people's
paper and it now appeals to the people to come forward and raise the
money [for the statue's pedestal]." The statue, he said, was paid
for by "the masses of the French people. Let us respond in like
manner. Let us not wait for the millionaires to give this money. It is
not a gift from the millionaires of France to the millionaires of
America, but a gift of the whole people of France to the whole people of
America."
The circulation of the World increased by almost 50,000
copies. African-American newspapers joined in the effort, encouraging
their readers to contribute to a monument that would, in part,
commemorate the end of slavery. So the money poured in, from
single-dollar donations from grandmothers to pennies from the piggybanks
of schoolchildren.
On June 15, 1885, the Statue of Liberty - inside 214 wooden packing
crates - arrived at Bedloe's Island.
On August 11, 1885, the front page of the World proclaimed,
"ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS!" The goal had been reached, and
slightly exceeded, thanks to more than 120,000 individual contributions.
The Place on Which She Stands
The American Committee had selected an architect for Liberty's
pedestal back in December 1881. He was Richard Morris Hunt, a highly
respected designer of expensive homes, who was enormously popular with
the wealthy set of New York and Newport, Rhode Island. Hunt submitted a
number of drawings for the pedestal, and one was selected by the
committee in 1884. The winning design was for an 89-foot-high pedestal
that would sit upon a concrete foundation appearing to grow up from
within the 11-pointed-star-shaped walls of Fort Wood. His fee for the
project was $1,000, which he promptly returned to the fund to reassemble
the statue.
General Charles P. Stone was the chief engineer in charge of the
entire construction project, including the foundation, the pedestal, and
the reassembly of the statue.
The foundation alone required 24,000 tons of concrete, the largest
single mass at that time ever poured. It measures 52 feet, 10 inches
high. At the bottom it is 91 feet square; at the top it is 65 feet
square. The pedestal rises 89 feet above the foundation.
The Statue of Liberty began to rise over her new home in America in
May 1886. It would take six months to mount the statue to her base.
The Dream Accomplished
On October 25, 1886, Bartholdi and his wife, accompanied by Count
Ferdinand-Marie de Lesseps, chairman of the French Committee, arrived in
America. They were greeted by the American Committee and Joseph
Pulitzer. At Bedloe's Island, surrounded by newspaper reporters
recording his words for posterity, Bartholdi simply said, "The
dream of my life is accomplished."
The Unveiling of "The
Lady"
Unveiling day - October 28, 1886 - was a public holiday. It was also
rainy and foggy, but the weather could not dampen the spirits of the
more than 1 million people who lined New York's bunting- and
French-tricolor-draped streets to watch a parade of more than 20,000
pass by. Wall Street was the only area of the city working that day. The
New York Times reported that as the parade passed by, the office
boys "… from a hundred windows began to unreel the spools of tape
that record the fateful messages of the 'ticker.' In a moment the air
was white with curling streamers." And so the famous New York
ticker-tape parade was born.
Dignitaries from both nations were in abundant attendance.
Representing America were President Grover Cleveland and members of his
cabinet, as well as the governor of New York and his staff. The French
ambassador attended, accompanied by the French Committee. And, most
ironically, members of some of America's wealthiest families - the same
families who had not contributed a single cent to the statue's pedestal
- now jockeyed for seats of prominence.
New York, reported the World, "was one vast cheer."
Out on the water, fog alternately rolled in and out, as though
following the movement of the waves in the harbor. The harbor teemed
with ships of all sizes, from the 250 vessels of the North Atlantic
Squadron to tugs, ferries, freighters, and dinghies. Bartholdi stood
alone in the head of the statue. It was to be his task to pull a cord
that would drop the French tricolor veil from the face of the statue.
For his cue, Bartholdi was to watch for a signal from a boy on the
ground below, who would wave a handkerchief. The signal would come when
Senator William M. Evarts, considered one of the more long-winded
speakers of his time, finished his presentation speech.
Evarts began his speech, stopped momentarily to take a breath, and
the boy, thinking the speech was over, gave Bartholdi the signal.
Bartholdi pulled the cord, revealing the statue's gleaming copper
face to the world. Whistles blasted, guns roared, bands played … and
Evarts sat down.
When it was President Cleveland's turn to speak, he said, "We
will not forget that Liberty has made here her home, nor shall her
chosen altar be neglected."
Now, more than 100 years later, neither she nor her chosen altar has
been neglected.
Liberty's First 100 Years
At the time the Statue of Liberty was dedicated, she was the tallest
structure in New York, reaching to a total height of 305 feet. It wasn't
until 1899 that she was overtaken by Saint Paul's Building, which rose
to 310 feet. Today, of course, she is architecturally dwarfed by the
World Trade Center, which rises to an astonishing 1,377 feet. Yet she
remains the visual and spiritual center of New York Harbor.
From 1886 to 1902, the Statue of Liberty was maintained by the
Lighthouse Board, an agency of the federal government, in conjunction
with the Army and the American Committee. In 1901, the War Department
assumed responsibility, making some much-needed repairs and improvements
to the statue and the island.
In 1903, one of the most memorable changes to the statue occurred,
without fanfare or publicity, when a bronze tablet was fastened to an
interior wall of the pedestal. Cast as a part of the plaque was a poem
written in 1883 that has become the credo for thousands of immigrants
coming to America.
The poem, The New Colossus, was written by Emma Lazarus to
help raise funds for the construction of the statue's pedestal. Today,
many people think of the Statue of Liberty and the poem as inseparable.
In 1916, the World once again raised its voice to raise funds
on behalf of the statue. This time, the goal was to floodlight the
statue at night. The paper's readers contributed $30,000, and the torch
was also redesigned in glass.
From the time of the Revolutionary War, the female figure Columbia
was generally regarded as the symbol for America, but the statue's
increased visibility and popularity during World War I easily shifted
America's symbolic loyalties. Liberty's features appeared everywhere;
she became a kind of female equivalent to Uncle Sam. To help finance
U.S. participation in the war, the Treasury Department authorized using
the statue as a rallying symbol on posters to raise funds. The
government sold about $15 billion worth of bonds, equal to about half
the cost of World War I.
President Calvin Coolidge declared the Statue of Liberty to be a
national monument on October 15, 1924. In 1933 the NPS took over
administration and maintenance of the statue.
The French-American Committee for the Restoration of the Statue of
Liberty was established in 1981. Following an initial diagnostic report
for the NPS, it was determined that substantial work needed to be done.
The Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation was then formed to raise
the needed funds and to oversee the restoration of both the Statue of
Liberty and Ellis Island. Again, as in the past, private contributions
were the backbone of the foundation's success: More than $295 million
was collected, with $86 million going to the statue's restoration.
On July 4, 1986, America threw a birthday party for the Statue of
Liberty that will not soon be forgotten. With a golden sunset glowing in
the background, President Ronald Reagan declared, "We are the
keepers of the flame of liberty; we hold it high for the world to
see." Later that day, the president pressed a button that sent a
laser beam across the water toward the statue. Slowly, dramatically,
majestically, a light show unveiled Liberty and her new torch, and the
most spectacular fireworks show America had ever seen exploded across
the sky. With an entire nation watching - along with 1.5 billion
television viewers around the world - and thousands of people filled
with gratitude, one wonders how Bartholdi and Laboulaye might have felt
as Liberty enlightened the world that historic night.
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