I watched a documentary this week which explained the history of the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor. I was amazed at how little I knew about its origins, its construction, and its arrival and installation on Bedloe’s Island. I would guess that most of my readers, together with the vast majority of the U.S. population, are at least as ignorant about the iconic structure as I was. It is a fascinating story that comes down to the lifelong efforts of one man….and he was French.
The Statue of Liberty was conceived to commemorate the enduring friendship between the United States and France and to celebrate their shared values of liberty and democracy. It was also intended to represent the enlightenment of democracy’s promise – the torch held high in the Lady’s hand. Once installed in New York harbor, it became a beacon of hope for immigrants arriving in the United States.
According to the U.S. National Park Service, the idea of a monument, presented by the French people to the United States, was first proposed by Édouard René de Laboulaye, president of the French Anti-Slavery Society, and a prominent and important political thinker of his time. The project is traced to a mid-1865 conversation, In Paris, between Laboulaye, a staunch abolitionist, and Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, a sculptor. In after-dinner conversation at his home near Versailles, Laboulaye, an ardent supporter of the Union in the American Civil War, is supposed to have said: “If a monument should rise in the United States, as a memorial to their independence, I should think it only natural if it were built by united effort—a common work of both our nations.”
The conversation at that dinner so inspired Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi that he spent most of his adult life working to make it happen. It was a long and very difficult process that nearly failed numerous times. Bartholdi designed the statue as a colossal neoclassical sculpture, drawing inspiration from ancient Roman goddesses Libertas. He incorporated the following symbolism:
- The seven rays on her crown represent the seven continents — freedom’s universal reach.
- The broken chains at her feet symbolize liberation from oppression and tyranny – his original design had the chains in her hand but objections from form the U.S. moved them to her feet.
- Her torch represents enlightenment and the path to a brighter future.
- Her toga references classical Greco-Roman tradition and the roots of modern democracy.
The problem was that no-one was particularly interested, particularly in the United States.
Given the repressive nature of the regime of Napoleon III, Bartholdi took no immediate action on the idea except to discuss it with Laboulaye. Any large project was further delayed by the Franco-Prussian War, in which Bartholdi served as a major of militia. In the war, Napoleon III was captured and deposed. Bartholdi’s home province of Alsace was lost to the Prussians, and a more liberal republic was installed in France. As Bartholdi had been planning a trip to the United States, he and Laboulaye decided the time was right to discuss the idea of the gift with influential Americans. In June 1871, Bartholdi crossed the Atlantic, with letters of introduction signed by Laboulaye.
Arriving at New York Harbor, Bartholdi focused on Bedloe’s Island (now named Liberty Island) as a site for the statue, struck by the fact that vessels arriving in New York had to sail past it. He was delighted to learn that the island was owned by the United States government – it had been ceded by the New York State Legislature in 1800 for harbor defense. It was thus, as he put it in a letter to Laboulaye: “land common to all the states.” Bartholdi visited President Ulysses S. Grant, who assured him that it would not be difficult to obtain the site for the statue. Bartholdi crossed the United States twice by rail, and met many Americans whom he thought would be sympathetic to the project. But he remained concerned that popular opinion on both sides of the Atlantic was insufficiently supportive of the proposal, and he and Laboulaye decided to wait before mounting a public campaign.
Bartholdi began his design, which went through many stages of development, all with no commitment from anyone that they would pay for it, or even put it up if it was finished.
By 1875, France was enjoying improved political stability and a recovering postwar economy. Growing interest in the upcoming Centennial Exposition to be held in Philadelphia led Laboulaye to decide it was time to seek public support. In September 1875, he announced the project and the formation of the Franco-American Union as its fundraising arm. With the announcement, the statue was given a name, Liberty Enlightening the World. The French people were to finance the statue (contrary to the common misconception of it being funded by the French national government); and Americans would be expected to pay for the pedestal.
The announcement provoked a generally favorable reaction in France, though many Frenchmen resented the United States for not coming to their aid during the war with Prussia. French monarchists opposed the statue, if for no other reason than it was proposed by the liberal Laboulaye, who had recently been elected a senator for life. Laboulaye arranged events designed to appeal to the rich and powerful, including a special performance at the Paris Opera on April 25, 1876, that featured a new cantata by the composer Charles Gounod. The piece was titled La Liberté éclairant le monde, the French version of the statue’s announced name.
Initially focused on the elites, the Union was successful in raising funds from across French society. Schoolchildren and ordinary citizens gave, as did 181 French municipalities. Laboulaye’s political allies supported the call, as did descendants of the French contingent in the American Revolutionary War. Less idealistically, contributions came from those who hoped for American support in the French attempt to build the Panama Canal. The copper may have come from multiple sources and some of it is said to have come from a mine in Visnes, Norway, though this has not been conclusively determined after testing samples. According to Cara Sutherland in her book on the statue for the Museum of the City of New York, 200,000 pounds (91,000 kg) was needed to build the statue, and the French copper industrialist Eugène Secrétan donated 128,000 pounds (58,000 kg) of copper. It is interesting to note that the thickness of the copper skin is very small; 3/32 of an inch – about 2.4 mm or 0.09 inch. This is roughly the thickness of two stacked pennies.
Although plans for the statue had not been finalized, Bartholdi moved forward with fabrication of the right arm, bearing the torch, and the head. In May 1876, Bartholdi traveled to the United States as a member of a French delegation to the Centennial Exhibition, and arranged for a huge painting of the statue to be shown in New York as part of the Centennial festivities. He also arranged to have the arm with the torch shipped to the exhibition. The arm did not arrive in Philadelphia until August, which was late in the Exhibition. However, the arm proved popular in the Exhibition’s waning days, and visitors would climb up to the balcony of the torch to view the fairgrounds. After the Exhibition closed, the arm was transported to New York City, where it remained on display in Madison Square Park for several years before it was returned to France to join the rest of the statue.
Bartholdi decided to complete the statue in Paris, disassemble it, and ship it in boxes to New York for reassembly and installation, despite the fact there was still not enough money to do anything with it.
Interestingly, he relied on Gustave Eiffel’s new concept of a secondary skeleton attached to a central pylon so that it would be flexible in New York harbor’s winds – it moves slightly – and hollow, allowing internal circular staicses. Eiffel went on to use the SAME “SKELETON” IDEA WHEN HE BUILT THE EIFFEL TOWER. He also allowed for the expansion and contraction of the copper skin in the changing seasons’ temperatures.
Separately, since the weight of the statue was of concern, the American architect, who designed the pedestal, decided to use steel bars in the concrete – THE FIRST TIME “REBAR” HAD BEEN USED IN CONSTRUCTION.
The committees in the United States faced great difficulties in obtaining funds for the construction of the pedestal. There was criticism both of Bartholdi’s statue and of the fact that the gift required Americans to foot the bill for the pedestal. In the years following the Civil War, most Americans preferred realistic artworks depicting heroes and events from the nation’s history, rather than allegorical works like the Liberty statue. Joseph Pulitzer, publisher of the New York World, a New York newspaper, announced a drive to raise $100,000 (equivalent to $3,583,000 in 2025). Pulitzer pledged to print the name of every contributor, no matter how small the amount given. The drive captured the imagination of New Yorkers, especially when Pulitzer began publishing the notes he received from contributors. “A young girl alone in the world” donated “60 cents, the result of self denial.” One donor gave “five cents as a poor office boy’s mite toward the Pedestal Fund.” A group of children sent a dollar as “the money we saved to go to the circus with.” Another dollar was given by a “lonely and very aged woman.” Residents of a home for alcoholics in New York’s rival city of Brooklyn—the cities would not merge until 1898- donated $15; other drinkers helped out through donation boxes in bars and saloons. A kindergarten class in Davenport, Iowa, mailed the World a gift of $1.35. As the donations flooded in, the committee resumed work on the pedestal. France raised about $250,000 to build the statue, while the United States had to raise up to $300,000 to build the pedestal.
Bartholdi decided to ship the boxes anyway. On June 17, 1885, the French steamer Isère arrived in New York with the crates holding the disassembled statue on board. New Yorkers displayed their newfound enthusiasm for the statue. Two hundred thousand people lined the docks and hundreds of boats put to sea to welcome the ship. After five months’ daily calls to donate to the statue fund, on August 11, 1885, the World announced that $102,000 had been raised from 120,000 donors, and that 80 percent of the total had been received in sums of less than one dollar (equivalent to $36 in 2025). However, even with the success of the fund drive, the pedestal was not completed until April 1886.
A ceremony of dedication was held on the afternoon of October 28, 1886. President Grover Cleveland, the former New York governor, presided over the event. On the morning of the dedication, a parade was held in New York City; estimates of the number of people who watched it ranged from several hundred thousand to a million. President Cleveland headed the procession, then stood in the reviewing stand to see bands and marchers from across America. General Stone was the grand marshal of the parade. The route began at Madison Square, once the venue for the arm, and proceeded to the Battery at the southern tip of Manhattan by way of Fifth Avenue and Broadway, with a slight detour so the parade could pass in front of the World building on Park Row. As the parade passed the New York Stock Exchange, traders threw ticker tape from the windows, BEGINNING THE NEW YORK TRADITION OF THE TICKER-TAPE PARADE.
UPDATE: In the early 1980’s, the statue was examined in great detail by French and American engineers as part of the planning for its centennial. In 1982, it was announced that the statue was in need of considerable restoration. The engineers were faced with a lack of detailed drawings and documentation, as well as major structural changes in prior decades. A careful study had revealed that the right arm had been improperly attached to the main structure. It was swaying more and more when strong winds blew and there was a significant risk of structural failure. In addition, the head had been installed 2 feet (0.61 m) off center, and one of the rays was wearing a hole in the right arm when the statue moved in the wind. The armature structure was badly corroded, and about two percent of the exterior plates needed to be replaced. Although problems with the armature had been recognized as early as 1936, when cast iron replacements for some of the bars had been installed, much of the corrosion had been hidden by layers of paint applied over the years. Perhaps we need another people’s/crowd fundraiser!
The story of the Statue of Liberty has many, many more twists and turns that I have reported here. Its quite amazing that it is even there at all. That it is, is down to the commitment of one man, Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi.
