The Statue of Liberty

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she

With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me.

I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”

Emma Lazarus, 1883

The story of the Statue of Liberty is a patriotic myth, a melodrama, a public relations stunt and complex human transaction all in one. In 1875, France, seeking to honor the centenary of the United States, proposes to erect a giant statue that will overlook the entrance to New York Harbor, the immigrant gateway to North America. The statue will be a super-sized version of one that already is a famous piece of public art in Paris. The chief proponent of the gift, the sculptor Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi, hasn’t yet figured out how he will build the 150-foot-high statue. 

A series of false starts, setbacks, digressions, interruptions and second guesses demolishes Bartholdi’s hope that the statue can be dedicated on July 4, 1876, the 100^th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. The statue’s costs and the immense engineering problems it poses combine to insure that it will take at least another 10 years before it can be delivered, assembled and dedicated. 

In 1883, at an auction to raise funds for the statue, which will be called “Liberty Enlightening the World,” a New York poet, Emma Lazarus, contributes a poem called “The New Colossus.” The poem describes an idealized America that both rejects the pomp and pretense of ancient empires and welcomes refugees and immigrants with open arms. It causes an initial stir, then is forgotten as preparations for erection of the statue enter their final years. Lazarus, an established poet from a wealthy fourth-generation Jewish family, does not know that this eventually will become the poem by which she is best known. She will die a scant four years later thinking “The New Colossus” has been forgotten. 

But she lives long enough to see Liberty Enlightening the World finally dedicated on October 28, 1886, the statue soaring from a 150-foot-high stone base on Bedloe’s Island in New York Harbor. The statue, built from individual sheets of copper that have been hammered and pressed into curving shapes, then joined together, is not only the tallest in the world and the largest since antiquity’s Colossus of Rhodes, it is hollow. A spiral stairway within it allows visitors to climb to an observation deck within Liberty’s crown and even higher to her outstretched, torch-bearing arm. 

Liberty Enlightening the World soon becomes known by a shorter title, the Statue of Liberty, and becomes an icon among European immigrants. In the 1890s, the U.S. throws open its doors to newcomers, funneling almost all of them through Ellis Island, a near neighbor to the statue in New York Harbor. For the 22 million immigrants who pass through there between 1892 and 1924, catching sight of the Statue of Liberty becomes the poignant confirmation that they have arrived at the threshold to a new life. In 1902, “The New Colossus” is finally added on a bronze plaque at the base of the statue. Emma Lazarus’s poem, forgotten for almost a generation, becomes the statue’s final and perfect grace note. 

Only hours after seeing her, the vast majority of the immigrants in that era will experience first-hand what Lazarus’s poem described. After passing tests for disease, moral turpitude, political radicalism and feeblemindedness, those immigrants that pass are fed a simple meal of cold milk, fresh bread and apples. For many of them it is the finest meal they have ever eaten. Then they are led to boats that will take them the 1.3 miles to lower Manhattan. There, unceremoniously, with no words of welcome or encouragement, they are urged down the gangplank and onto the streets of New York. Only a few hours after their first – and probably last – view of Liberty Enlightening the World, they are now free to make of their lives what they will. Goodbye, King; goodbye, Kaiser; goodbye, Tsar; goodbye Old World. 

In 1984, UNESCO declares the statue a World Heritage Site, a designation that spurs already underway efforts to rescue Liberty from the effects of rust and weather. A multi-million dollar restoration that culminates in a huge rededication celebration on July 4, 1986. After Sept. 11, 2001, concerns over terrorists targeting this American icon lead to the indefinite closing down of the statue itself. Visitors are still free to visit Liberty Island and tour the grounds, but cannot go into or up the statue. There’s a fine view of the statue from nearby Ellis Island. 

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