Statue of Liberty

• Sculptor: Ferderic-Auguste Bartholdi
• Engineer: Gustave Eiffel
• Pedestal: Richard Morris Hunt
• Dedicated: 1886
• Medium and size: Hammered sheet copper over iron skeleton (151 feet), granite pedestal (155 feet)
• Location: Liberty Island, New York Harbor

Bartholdi’s Inspiration for Liberty

In a promotional pamphlet aimed at raising funds for Liberty’s pedestal, Bartholdi described how he decided where the sculpture should be erected.

[A]t the view of the harbor of New York the definite plan was first clear to my eyes. The picture that is presented to the view when one arrives at 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, 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, some giants in size, some dwarfs, which swarm about, puffing, whistling, swinging the great arms of their uncovered walking-beams, moving to and fro like a crowd upon a public place. It is thrilling. It is, indeed, the New World, which appears in its majestic expanse, with the ardor of its glowing life. Was it not wholly natural that the artist was inspired by this spectacle? Yes, in this very place shall be raised the Statue of Liberty, grand as the idea which it embodies, radiant upon the two worlds. — Bartholdi, “The Statue of Liberty Enlightening the World” (1885) 

Dedication of Liberty, 1886

Joseph Pulitzer, who ran the sensationalist New York World and later funded the Jefferson  sculpture, played a major role in raising funds for the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. His effort was acknowledged with one of two gold rivets on Liberty’s toe: the other was in honor of Bartholdi. I have a hankering (which will probably never be fulfilled) to see those gold rivets.

Exceprts from the New York Times (10/29/1886) on the unveiling

Ferdinand de Lesseps, builder of the Suez Canal

The idea of erecting the statue of liberty was a generous one. It does honor to those who executed it. Liberty lighting the world! A great lighthouse raised in the midst of a fleet on the threshold of free America. In landing beneath its rays people will know that they have reached a land where individual initiative is developed in all its power; where progress is a religion; where great fortunes become popular by the charity they bestow and by encouraging instruction and science and casting their influence into the future. You are right, American citizens, to be proud of your ‘go ahead.’ You have made great headway in a hundred years, thanks to that cry, because you have been intrepid. In telling of the sympathy of France, I know that I am expressing the feeling of all my countrymen. There is no painful recollection between the two countries; only one rivalry – that of progress. We accept your inventions as you accept ours – without jealousy. You like men who dare and who persevere. I say, like you, ‘Go ahead!’ We understand each other when I use that term. — Ferdinand de Lesseps

Senator Evarts, interrupted

When the Senator paused, the young man in charge of passing the signal for the unveiling mistook the pause for the end of the speech, and gestured for the veil over Liberty’s face to be released.

All the noise that had gone before was child’s play to what broke forth then. The whistles blew, the guns boomed, the bands played, the drums rolled, and the throngs on the island and on the river shouted one thundering paean of acclamations that swept down the Bay on the wings of the northeast gale and smote the hills of Staten island with a huge shock of sound. — New York Times, 10/29/1886

Noted orator Chauncey M. Depew

In all the ages the achievements of man and his aspirations have been represented in symbols. Races have disappeared and no record remains of their rise or fall; but by their monuments we know their history. The huge monoliths of the Assyrians and the obelisks of the Egyptians tell their stories of forgotten civilizations, but the sole purpose of their erection was to glorify rulers and preserve the boasts of conquerors. They teach sad lessons of the vanity of ambition, the cruelty of arbitrary power, and the miseries of mankind.
The Olympian Jupiter enthroned in the Parthenon [sic] expressed in ivory and gold the awful majesty of the Greek idea of the King of the Gods; the bronze statue of Minerva on the Acropolis offered the protection of the patron goddess of Athens to the mariners who steered their ships by her helmet and spear, and in the Colossus of Rhodes, famed as one of the wonders of the world, the Lord of the Sun welcomed the commerce of the East to the city of his worship.
But they were all dwarfs in size and pigmies in spirit beside this mighty structure and its inspiring thought. Higher than the monument in Trafalgar-square which commemorates the victories of Nelson on the sea; higher than the Column Vendome, which perpetuates the triumphs of Napoleon on the land; higher than the towers of the Brooklyn Bridge, which exhibit the latest and grandest results of science, invention, and industrial progress, this statue of Liberty rises toward the heavens to illustrate an idea which nerved the three hundred at Thermopylae and armed the ten thousand at Marathon; which drove Tarquin from Rome and aimed the arrow of Tell; which charged with Cromwell and his Ironsides and accompanied Sydney to the block; which fired the farmer’s gun at Lexington and razed the Bastille in Paris; which inspired the charter in the cabin of the Mayflower and the Declaration of Independence from the Continental Congress.

It means that with the abolition of privileges to the few and the enfranchisement of the individual, the equality of all men before the law, and universal suffrage, the ballot secure from fraud and the voter from intimidation, the press free and education furnished by the State for all, liberty of worship and free speech, the right to rise and equal opportunity for honor and fortune, the problems of labor and capital, of social regeneration and moral growth, of property and poverty, will work themselves out under the benign influence of enlightened lawmaking and law-abiding liberty, without the aid of Kings and armies, or of Anarchists and bombs.

Chauncey Depew

Centennial of the Statue of Liberty

When the centennial of Liberty was celebrated in 1986, Tom Wolfe wrote a brilliant satirical essay, “The Copper Goddess,” describing the sort of statue that would have been in the harbor had this project been undertaken in our day, in accordance with the decrees of contemporary critics about the nature of sculpture. Wolfe concluded that a present-day Liberty would look like Richard Serra’s Tilted Arc, a rusting eyesore removed from the plaza of Manhattan’s Jacob Javits Federal Building in 1989 following a petition the building’s workers, in spite of the artist’s objection that it was a “site-specific” work that would lose its meaning if erected anywhere else. 

More

• For more on the Statue of Liberty, see Outdoor Monuments of Manhattan: A Historical Guide and Statue of Liberty: Timeless Art, Political Hot Topic, a look at the Statue of Liberty as a timeless work of art and as a political statement by those who conceived it and by their 19th-c. contemporaries. This began as the first essay in Outdoor Monuments of Manhattan: A Historical Guide, but is expanded for this Kindle edition with archival illustrations, close-up views of Liberty, more quotes from sculptor Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi and his contemporaries, out-takes, and tips on photographing outdoor sculptures in New York.
• In Getting More Enjoyment from Sculpture You Love, I demonstrate a method for looking at sculptures in detail, in depth, and on your own. Learn to enjoy your favorite sculptures more, and find new favorites. Available on Amazon in print and Kindle formats. More here.
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