For more than 100 years the Statue of Liberty in New York Bay has been a symbol of the United States. The statue welcomed millions of immigrants to the country in the years when most people crossed the Atlantic Ocean by ship. The statue itself is a kind of immigrant. It came from France as a gift from the people of that country.
The Statue of Liberty stands on Liberty Island, just off the southern tip of the part of New York City called Manhattan. It is one of the largest statues ever built. The statue alone is about 151 feet (46 meters) tall. With its concrete pedestal, it stands 305 feet (93 meters) high. The statue is made of sheets of pounded copper only 3/32 inch (2.4 millimeters) thick. An inner framework of iron supports the copper.
The formal name of the statue—Liberty Enlightening the World—is also the idea that it was meant to represent. The statue shows a woman draped in flowing robes, looking out over the harbor. On her head is a crown with seven spikes. They represent rays of light shining on the world's seven continents and seven seas. Her raised right hand holds a torch. In her left hand is a tablet with the inscription “July IV, MDCCLXXVI.” These Roman numerals represent July 4, 1776, the date when the American colonies declared their independence from Great Britain (see Declaration of Independence).
A plaque on the pedestal displays a poem by Emma Lazarus entitled The New Colossus. Lazarus wrote her poem before the statue was put into place. In part of the poem, she imagines the statue offering refuge to people from all lands:
“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-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
A French historian named Edouard de Laboulaye came up with the idea for the Statue of Liberty in 1865. The French people, he thought, might commemorate the alliance between France and the United States during the American Revolution by giving a massive statue to the American people. The occasion for the gift would be the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, in 1876. The project took longer than expected, however.
The French sculptor Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi toured the United States in 1871 and decided that New York's Bedloe's Island—later renamed Liberty Island—would make an ideal location for the monument. Bartholdi designed the statue, and Gustave Eiffel designed a framework to support it. (Eiffel went on the create the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France.)
Americans took responsibility for the pedestal, which was built on the foundation of an old fort. The pedestal was designed by the architect Richard Morris Hunt and paid for by contributions from the public.
Workers in France completed the statue in 1884. It was then taken apart and shipped to the United States, where it was reassembled. President Grover Cleveland dedicated the completed statue on October 28, 1886.
The statue quickly became a national symbol. It was made a national monument in 1924. In 1984 the United Nations added it to the list of World Heritage sites. A massive restoration effort prepared the statue for its 100th birthday celebration in 1986. Workers repaired decaying metalwork and applied gold leaf to brighten the flame of the torch.
The torch, which can be reached only by climbing a ladder, was closed to the public in 1916. Visitors were still allowed to use an inside stairway to reach an observation deck in the statue's crown. In 2001, however, the entire statue was closed to the public following a terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in Manhattan.n the retina.
