STATUE of LIBERTY ENLIGHTENING the WORLD THE NEW YORK TRUST COMPANY STATUE OF LIBERTY ENLIGHTENING THE WORLD The New Colossus 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-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door." EMMA LAZARUS
WORLD-LIGHTING LIBERTY - THE BARTHOLDI STATUE UNVEILED - CEREMONIES AT THE DEDICATION OF THE GIFT OF THE FRENCH PEOPLE STATUE OF LIBERTY ENLIGHTENING THE WORLD By Rodman Gilder THE NEW YORK TRUST COMPANY 100 BROADWAY TEN ROCKEFELLER PLAZA MADISON AVENUE AND FORTIETH STREET COPYRIGHT, 1943, BY THE NEW YORK TRUST COMPANY PRINTED IN LETTERPRESS AND PHOTOGRAVURE BY WILLIAM E. RUDGE’S SONS IN JUNE 1943 The New York Trust Company wishes to make special acknowledgement to Harry T. Peters for his valued counsel and for access to his superb collection of prints; to George H. Eckhardt for his guidance; and to the author, Rodman Gilder, Director, American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society; Trustee, New York Society Library; Trustee, City History Club; Past Member of Art Commission, City of New York; and author of "The Battery." FOREWORD For many years, The New York Trust Company has used a representation of the Statue of Liberty as its symbol. Such use was prompted by an enduring regard for the statue and belief in the ideals for which it stands. Our interest in the statue dates from the formation in 1889 of the New York Security and Trust Company, whose incorporators were represented through William L. Strong on the American Committee for the Statue of Liberty and its Finance Committee. The Statue of Liberty itself had then been dedicated on Bedloe's Island only three years before, but was already strongly identified with the harbor and city of New York -- a name featured in our corporate title adopted in 1905. The Liberty National Bank, formed in 1891, naturally used the symbol during its thirty years of separate existence. Through this bank, which was merged with The New York Trust Company in 1921, we acquired the model of the great monument cast by Bartholdi. This small statue now stands in the lobby of our Main Office, located in lower Manhattan, a short distance from the Battery from which the famous statue may be viewed. This model and a counterpart whose present whereabouts is unknown, if indeed it still exists, were the first bronze castings made by the sculptor from the clay "sketch." As was the custom, refinements were made in the mould and finishing, especially affecting the crown and torch. Out model is signed by Bartholdi and dated "1875 -- Registered in Washington, August 31, 1876." The second date refers to the deposit of the two models in the United States Patent Office under the law of the day. Upon the disposal of patent models by the Patent Office, the two small statues passed into private ownership -- one of them eventually coming into our care as an irreplaceable and treasured possession. Today, when the forces of liberty are struggling once more against the forces of oppression, it seems fitting to consider some of the motives underlying the creation of the greatest of all symbols of human freedom--the Statue of Liberty. To that purpose, this book is dedicated. John E. Bierwirth PRESIDENT  ORIGINAL BRONZE MODEL OF THE STATUE OF LIBERTY One of two casts by the sculptor registered in the United States Patent Office. Now in the lobby of the Main Office of The New York Trust Company. STATUE OF LIBERTY ENLIGHTENING THE THE WORLD More than half a century ago, the torch of the Statue of Liberty was raised in New York Harbor, a beacon to guide the free men of the world. The statue has come to be regarded as the token of the solemn pledge of one free people to the downtrodden of other lands that in the United States of America there will always exist equality under the law, and that in one land the rights of man will always be respected and guarded. Although the statue itself is little more than one-third as old as the Nation, the ideals forged into the metal and built into the stone of the base are as eternal as liberty itself. They go directly back to the American Revolution, when a small band of brave men built strong foundations upon which arose the structure of a great nation. Millions have seen the monument on Bedloe's Island from the Battery and from ships and many thousands visit it every year; yet not every American has actually laid eyes on the statue in its full grandeur. Nevertheless, its deep significance is understood through-out this entire "nation conceived in liberty." The towering statue has a profound symbolic meaning for every American soldier and sailor going forth from the port of New York to defend his own and his country's liberty. When they return in triumph, our
victorious fighting men will greet this mighty symbol -- as they have in the past -- with shouts and often with tears. More than 18,000,000 immigrants, it is estimated, have entered this country through the port of New York since the monument was unveiled. For them the first sight of Liberty was an experience never to be forgotten. ORIGIN OF THE IDEA In 1865, a little group of French men-of-letters, artists and politicians met at the home of Edouard Rene de Laboulaye near Versailles, France. Of all Frenchmen, only Lafayette had exceeded Laboulaye in his love for the United States, and it was said that the mantle of that hero descended upon his shoulders. Better than any of his countrymen, Laboulaye recognized the bond of a common love for liberty that existed between the people of France and the United States. Although a subject of Napoleon III, this outspoken republican had in 1850 printed a discourse on the American Constitution and "the utility of studying it," had written a learned "Political History of the United States," a paper on the youth of Benjamin Franklin, and a novel, "Paris in America," in which a character says: "The folly of love and the madness of ambition are sometimes curable, but no one was ever cured of a mania for liberty." In the same book, liberty is described as the "daughter of the Gospel -- sister of justice and pity -- mother of equality, abundance, and peace." It was decided that the French should give to the Americans some great token that would be a symbol of eternal friendship. This was to be a gift from a people to a people, not from a government to a government. THE SCULPTOR BARTHOLDI One of Laboulaye's guests was a bearded young Alsatian sculptor, Auguste Bartholdi. The Franco-Prussian War a few years later found Bartholdi taking part, as an organizer of the Garde
Nationale, in the hopeless defense of his native Alsace against this latest invasion from the east. He also served on the staff of Garibaldi in the Army of the Vosges. After the total defeat of the French Emperor and armies, and while civil war was raging in Paris, Bartholdi decided to make his long-deferred visit to the United States. As he reached these shores, the definite plan for the monument which he was to build to Franco-American friendship became clear in his mind. "The picture that is presented to the view when one arrives at New York," he declared, "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 square, it is thrilling. It is indeed, the New World, which appears in its majestic expanse with the ardor of its glowing life. Was it no wholly natural the artist was inspired by this spectacle? Yes, in this very place shall be raised the statue of Liberty, as grand as the idea which it embodies, casting radiance upon the two worlds. If, then, the form of the accomplished work is
 BARTHOLDI'S OWN PRELIMINARY SKETCH OF THE STATUE OF LIBERTY ENLIGHTENING THE WORLD "The Statue was born for this place which inspired its conception," wrote Bartholdi. "May God be pleased to bless my efforts and my work and to crown it with the success, the duration, and moral influence which it ought to have." Note in the background Brooklyn Bridge, then under construction;it was opened in 1883. "To the sculptor form is everything and is nothing; it is nothing without the spirit--with the idea it is everything," said Victor Hugo in a personal message written later to Bartholdi, whose project the aged author encouraged from the beginning. Bartholdi's sculpture at its best was inspired by the spirit, the idea of his subject. His most famous work in France is the colossal stone "Lion of Belfort" on a mountain side -- a lion at bay, unyielding and defiant. The idea was the superb defense of Belfort against seventy-three days of shattering Prussian bombardment. The idea of France bringing timely aid to our newborn nation is expressed in Bartholdi's statue--in Union Square, New York--of the youthful, ardent Lafayette stepping ashore from a small boat, pressing his sword against his heart as he offers heart and sword to General Washington. Although the monument to the friendship of the two nations was conceived by the artist as a colossus on a pedestal, Bartholdi was resolved that it should not seem colossal, except to those who came near its base. It was to be larger than any known statue ancient or modern, but in the immense picture surrounding it, in a harbor all of twenty square miles in area, it was to "appear simply in harmony with the whole, and have the normal aspect of a statue in a public square." The site chosen by Bartholdi was the small island about a mile and a half southwest of the tip of Manhattan. Before 1664, when the city was called New Amsterdam, the island belonged to one Isaack Bedloo, who came here from Calais, France. Its later names included Love Island (after Governor Lovelace), Oyster, Kennedy's, and Liberty Island. When Bartholdi arrived, he saw on Bedloe's Island the star-shaped ramparts of Fort Wood (named
after Col. Eleazar D. Wood, a hero of the War of 1812). This fort had been built in 1811, upon much earlier fortifications, to command the main channel of the harbor. In his imagination, the sculptor saw the pedestal and statue of his monument rising from the centre of the fort. Bartholdi, following the advice of Laboulaye, set about acquainting himself with our country and travelled as far west as San Francisco. He met, among many others, President Grant; Lieutenant-General Philip H. Sheridan, who had studied first hand the conduct of the Franco-Prussian War; Peter Cooper, manufacturer and philanthropist; John W. Forney, newspaper editor, poli- tician, and European Commissioner for the projected exposition in Philadelphia; and Charles Sumner. In New England, he was cordially received by the scientist Agassiz and the poet Longfellow. Sumner and Longfellow, ideal subjects for a sculptor, made the deepest impression upon him. They listened to his story and examined his sketch in water colors which foretold how the colossal statue would look in the midst of the vast''upper bay''of New York. After Bartholdi's return to Paris, Laboulaye, then a member of the Chamber of Deputies, organized a "Union Franco-Americaine" whose first public appeal for Statue of Liberty funds, in October, 1875, was signed by twenty-one men, including descendants of frghting French noblemen who helped this country win its independence - Noailles, Rochambeau, and Lafayette. Two American signatures appeared, those of John W. Forney and Elihu B. Washburne, our Minister to France, the only foreign envoy who stuck to his post during the dreadful siege of Paris. Washburne had been, for a time, Grant's Secretary of State. MONEY FOR THE STATUE Contributions came in from ordinary citizens, deputies, cabinet officers, and the popular old President of the Republic, Marie Edme Patrice Maurice MacMahon, a hero of the Crimean War, Marshal of France, who in 1870 had been wounded, overwhelmed and captured at Sedan. The City of Paris gave $2000. No contribution was asked or received from the French Government. The fund was not large enough to finish the whole work in time for the Philadelphia Exposition in 1876; but the right forearm, hand and torch were there for the more than nine million visitors to see. After the fair, this exhibit was displayed, on the Fifth Avenue side of Madison Square, New York City, until in 1884 it was sent back to Paris. 
THE ORIGINAL MODEL OF THE STATUE OF LIBERTY This clay model was completed by Bartholdi in 1875 and approved by the Franco-American Union. It is in the Bartholdi Museum in Colmar, France. Inset: BARTHOLDI'S MOTHER Charlotte Beysser Bartholdi was the model for the Statue of Liberty. This painting is also in the Bartholdi Museum in Colmar, France.  Adapted ftom St. Nicholas, July. 1984. THE HEAD OF THE STATUE Exhibited in Paris before being sent to America. At the Paris Exposition of 1878, the colossal head of Liberty was exhibited and was found to be spacious enough to accommodate forty visitors at a time. "La Liberte Eclairant le Monde," a hymn by the playwright, Emile Guiard, was set to music by Charles Gounod, composer of "Faust," and was sung at the Paris Opera. The refrain, translated, was: "The rays of my torch, piercing the darkness, bring lost ships to safe anchorage and carry my light to the oppressed." With the sanction of the French Government, a lottery was organized for the benefit of the fund. Three hundred thousand tickets were sold at one franc, then worth about twenty cents. Two hundred small terra cotta replicas of the statue were also sold - each signed by Bartholdi and registered--at 1000 francs in France and, to cover duty and shipping costs, at $300 in this country. These were almost exact copies of the original "study model" whose height was 1.25 meters (about 4 feet). Two bronze copies of the "study model" were sent here and registered in the United States Patent Ofjtice in 1876. The Union Franco-Americaine announced in 1880 that the fund was complete. Contributions had been received from 5000 subscribers, including 181 cities and ten municipal chambers of commerce. The unique task that Bartholdi and his associates had set themselves attracted wide attention: they had no less than 300,000 visitors to their workshop from far and near. Ex-President Grant showed his interest by visiting the shop on his journey around the world in 1877. Building of the Monument In Egypt, at twenty, Bartholdi had gazed with deep emotion upon the colossal, centuries-old "granite beings, in their imperturbable majesty ... whose kindly and impassible glance seems to disregard the present and to be fixed upon the unlimited future." He said that he learned then that the treatment of a colossal statue must be entirely different from that of heroic, life-size, or smaller sculpture. "The details of the lines ought not to arrest the eye ... the surfaces should be broad and simple, defined by a bold and clear design, accentuated in the important places ... it should have a summarized character such as one would give to a rapid sketch." Starting with the 1.25-meter model, a complete statue 2.85 meters high was built, followed by another four times as high, this latter being about one-fourth the size of the completed masterpiece. At each stage, the sculptor made changes in order to conform to the principle of the utmost simplicity in the final work. Bartholdi's final modifications in design had to be made in the one-fourth-size model of plaster supported by its wooden frame. No further changes were possible. The statue was divided into about 300 sections, and each section enlarged to four times its size by the painstaking, mathematical 
LIBERTY ENLIGHTENING THE WORLD
BARTHOLDI'S COLOSSAL STATUE of BEDLOE'S ISLAND NEW YORK HARBOR
by Harry Fenn. Harper's Weekly, October 30, 1886.
process of "pointing up," in this case involving many thousands of measurements and as many verifications. Against the plaster surface of each of these enlarged sections was built and fitted precisely a stout mould of laminated wood. Into each wooden mould, a sheet (one square meter or larger) of virgin copper, 2.5 millimeters or about one-tenth of an inch in thickness, was pressed by means of rammers, levers, and mallets large and small. In the case of complicated shapes, the copper had to be heated. Wrought iron bands and rods gave rigidity to each of the copper sections, which were feather-edged and held together with one-fifth-inch flush-headed copper rivets. The "noble rust," as Italians call it, which gives copper and bronze so beautiful a surface color, has--aided by the salt-laden air of New York Harbor -- covered the Statue of Liberty with a malachite green that does not disintegrate the metal as rust devours iron. The iron skeleton of the statue, now anchored deep in the base of the masonry pedestal, was designed by the noted bridge-builder, Alexandre Gustave Eiffel, who later designed and built the Eiffel Tower. Between the skeleton and the exterior of the statue is a secondary iron structure. In designing the interior structure, Eiffel took into account the possible violence of gales on the Atlantic seaboard and provided a generous margin of strength. (The well anchored statue was virtually uninjured on Tuly 30, 1916, by the tremendous Black Tom eruptions in Jersey City which destroyed some $22,000,000 of munitions and other property.) Galvanic action was avoided by insulation between all iron and copper parts. (This now consists of asbestos, soaked in shellac.) Folds of the statue's drapery gave ample opportunity for expansion or contraction of the copper resulting from changes in temperature. Lightning is conducted by copper rods into the earth. LIBERTY RISES IN PARIS To honor the centenary of the surrender--which the French fleet and army made possible--at Yorktown on October 19, 1781, the first rivet was ceremoniously placed in the statue by the then American Minister to France, Levi P. Morton, Vice President of the United States in President Benjamin Harrison's administration, 1889-1893, and Governor of New York State from 1895 to 1897.
The statue, 151 feet 1 inch in height, set up without a pedestal in the Rue de Chazelles, on high ground three-fifths of a mile northeast of the Are de l'Etoile, towered above the skyline established by Baron Haussmann and, to the amazement of all Paris, topped even the Vendome Column. Its completion was celebrated at a dinner given to Bartholdi, May 21, 1884, by Henry F. Gillig, at which the sculptor received the compliments of the French and American guests, including Senator Jules Francois Jeannotte-Bozerian, former United States Minister Edward F. Noyes, and Count Ferdinand de Lesseps, engineer of the Suez Canal. Senator Bozerian, declaring that Bartholdi's masterpiece was a work of filial piety as well as of patriotism and art, said: "On the day that I, with many others, first harnessed myself to the success of our work, which is now reaching its happy conclusion, M. Bartholdi said to me,'Come with me to the opera. You will understand later the special reason for my invitation.' I accepted. We entered a stage box, in a corner of which sat a lady of imposing appearance. Finding myself near Bartholdi, I said to him,'That is the statue of Liberty Enlightening the World.' He pressed my hand, saying: 'Yes, it is.' Do you know who that lady was! It was Bartholdi's mother." She had, indeed, posed for the 
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HARPER'S MONTHLY,
JULY, 1885
Statue. Charlotte Beysser Bartholdi was the inspiration of her son. It was she who kept afire in him his desire to make thisstatue and it was fitting that she should thus be immortalized. Three weeks later, the sculptor was honored with a banquet by United States Minister Morton. On this occasion, Admiral Peyron announced that the French Government would furnish a vessel to convey the colossus to New York. On the Fourth of July, 1884, in the presence of members of the French Cabinet, and others, Count de Lesseps, representing the Union Franco-ArnCricaine, formally presented the statue to the United States in the person of Mr. Morton, who had been authorized to receive it. The statue, weighing about 220 tons, of which the copper weighed about 88 tons, was dismantled. The sections were numbered and packed in 210 wooden cases and at Rouen put aboard the government steamship Idsdre, which sailed May 21, 1885, for New York. 
National Park Service THE TORCH OF THE STATUE OF LIBERTY In Madison Square, New York, after the Philadelphia Exposition, in 1876, to 1884. Before the departure of the vessel, American residents of Paris presented to the city a reduced copy of the statue. First set up in the Place des Etats Unis, it was moved in 1889 to the downstream end of the long Isle des Cygnes and there re-dedicated by Marie Francois Sadi Carnot, President of the Republic, who received it from the American minister plenipotentiary, Whitelaw Reid, editor and publisher of the New-York Tribune. At this ceremony, Eugene Spuller, Minister of Foreign Affairs, declared that the two great republics "united in the past by services rendered are united at present by a common principle, and will be united in the future by the benefits that Liberty will produce for humanity." This Side of the Atlantic Great monuments are often long a-building. The Washington Monument on the banks of the Potomac took thirty-six years--the Bunker Hill Monument twenty-eight. The Statue of Liberty was inaugurated eleven years after the French began to raise funds for the sculpture; and the American campaign for money to build the pedestal lasted about nine years. By the time the Idsere--loaded with the hammered copper and wrought iron of the largest and in some respects the most significant statue known to history--was sighted off Sandy Hook on June 16, 1885, New York and the nation were ready to receive appropriately the extraordinary gift from the people of France. But this state of mind had been reached with no undue haste. Although it was known here that $10,000 had already been contributed in France to the fund for building the statue and that Barthoidi was continuing his work, no money whatever was collected by the end of l876 to build the pedestal and provide for the reception of the gift. William M. Evarts, William H. Appleton, Samuel D. Babcock, John Jay, and William H. Wickham called a meeting at the Century Club to organize an American Committee for the Statue of Liberty. On January 2, 1877, Richard Butler, Joseph H. Choate, Frederic Coudert, James F. Dwight, George Jones (one of the cofounders of The New York Times), Edward Moran, James W. Pinchot, Theodore Roosevelt (father of the future President Theodore Roosevelt), H. F. Spaulding, Anson Phelps Stokes and other substantial citizens attended. Evarts was elected chairman, Spaulding treasurer, and Butler secretary. The original committee of 114 was later enlarged to more than 400. The Executive Committee consisted of Joseph W. Drexel, Parke Godwin, V. Mumford Moore, James W. Pinchot, and Frederick A. Potts. Louis de Bebian, Henry Hentz, Edward Kemp, Charles Lanier, Henry G. Marquand, William L. Strong, and S. V. White formed the Finance Committee, whose duty was to raise $125,000, the amount then deemed necessary. The prompt action of a sub-committee on legislation--Evarts, Godwin, Pinchot, Clark Bell and Ex-Governor of New York, Edwin D. Morgan--resulted in the passage on Washington's Birthday, 1877, of a joint resolution of Congress which stated that "Liberty Enlightening the World" was to be given and erected by French citizens and that the pedestal was to be built by private subscription. The resolution authorized and directed the President to accept the statue when presented "and to designate and set apart for the erection thereof a suitable site upon either Governor's or Bedloe's Island, in the harbor of New York; and upon the completion thereof shall cause the same to be inaugurated with such ceremonies as will serve to testify the gratitude of our people for this expressive and felicitous memorial of the sympathy of our sister republic; and he is hereby authorized to cause suitable regulations to be made for its future maintenance as a beacon, and for the permanent care and preservation thereof as a monument of art, and of the continual good will of the great nation which aided in our struggle for freedom." 
From Leslie's Weekly November 6, 1886. "THE GRAND DEMONSTRATION ON LIBERTY DAY, OCTOBER 28 -- THE MILITARY AND CIVIC PROCESSION PASSING DOWN LOWER BROADWAY WITH THE NAVAL PAGEANT IN THE DISTANCE." Veteran firemen, dragging their apparatus, were the principal feature of the parade, here viewed from approximately 100 Broadway. The Finance Committee met with many serious difficulties. Some rich patrons of the arts were slow to accept the merits of the statue. Less solvent citizens held back because they felt that the many rich men of the nation's commercial metropolis could easily contribute the required money. The New York public was apathetic. And to raise money for this purpose outside of New York City was difficult.  By Charles Graham. From Harper's Weekly, November 6, 1886. Harry T. Peters collection THE ILLUMINATION OF NEW YORK HARBOR Illumination of New York Harbor on the first clear night after the unveiling of the statue. Ground was broken on Bedloe's Island in April, 1883, but excavating was delayed until October. By January 4, 1884, the fund had reached $125,000. This amount was clearly inadequate. The foundation without the pedestal cost $93,830.61. It was explained that the miscalculation was the result of hidden masses of concrete and masonry under Fort Wood, within whose ramparts the monument was to be erected. In December, 1884, President Arthur recommended to Congress an appropriation to complete the pedestal. (The massive base, fifty-three feet deep, was already built.) A joint resolution to this effect died in committee. A later attempt to draw on the Federal Treasury failed. Governor Grover Cleveland vetoed, on constitutional grounds, a bill passed by the State Legislature to enable the City of New York to contribute $50,000 to the pedestal fund. Only fifteen feet had been built of the eighty-nine-foot pedestal. This had been designed by the distinguished American architect, Richard M. Hunt, who had received a nine-year professional training in France. Sealed into the cornerstone was a history of the statue, and other items. The treasurer of the American Committee announced early in March, 1885, that only $3000 was left of the $182,431.40 laboriously collected during the previous eight years, and that there was no prospect of further contributions. The World's Campaign These were the circumstances when a newspaper stepped into the breach to bring success as the press has done in so many other instances of worthy projects threatened with failure. The New York World, recently bought by Joseph Pulitter, started on March 15 a remarkable campaign to raise the $100,000 still needed for the pedestal. Pulitzer had emigrated from Hungary to the United States in time to serve in the Union Army in 1864; twenty years later, as the new editor of the World, he had played an important part in the election of Cleveland to the Presidency. The World, with the largest newspaper circulation (less than 150,000) in the United States, contended that, as the statue was a gift of the French people, the money for the pedestal should come from the people of our whole nation. It rejoiced when a subscription of $500 was received from a resident of Chicago. The newspaper itself contributed $l000, and called upon the poor and rich to save New York and the nation from the disgrace of failure to complete the project. Almost daily it hammered away. A cartoon, appearing repeatedly at the head of Statue of Liberty news, showed Uncle Sam, hat in hand, soliciting subscriptions for the pedestal. The World encouraged all sorts of theatrical, musical and sports benefits for the fund. It publicized a plan of the American Committee to sell statuettes of "Liberty" at one to five dollars each. Illustrated sheet music composed in honor of the statue was lithegraphed and sold for the fund. 
From Leslie's Weekly, July 2, 1887. Harry T. Perers collection. "WELCOME TO THE LAND OF FREEDOM -- OCEAN STEAMER PASSING THE STATUE OF LIBERTY--SEEN FROM THE STEERAGE DECK" The press with few exceptions praised and aided the World. The Philadelphia News collected subscriptions. The New York Times made a cash contribution. The World printed the name of every contributor. The list on July 12, 1885, for example, included "Little Wallie, May, Van Velsor, and Little Georgie, 10 cents each ... Mix's fifth contribution, 1 cent ...Total to date $92,090.83." On August 11, less than seven months after the campaign started, the World announced the completion of its fund, which had come from about 121,000 contributors. Although business concerns and individuals had given amounts up to $2,500, eighty percent of the money had been contributed in amounts of less than one dollar. The check sent by the World to the Committee was for $101,091. By common consent, $1000 of this was spent on a very elaborate testimonial for Bartholdi, designed by James R. Whittemore of Tiffany & Co. This featured a life-sized head in silver of the French sculptor, a large revolving globe of silver with France and the principal rivers of the world inlaid in gold, and a miniature of the statue. The design included a tribute to the power of the press in the form of the latest type of mammoth newspaper press shown in silver repousse. Liberty Comes to New York The reception of the French vessel Idsere, 1000 tons, which brought the statue to New York, took place on June 19, 1885. Major General Charles P. Stone -- a veteran of the Mexican and Civil Wars -- chief engineer of the pedestal, received, on a tug in the harbor, the title deeds conveying the statue from France to the United States. Then began the enormous task of assembling the statue and anchoring it to the pedestal. Bartholdi came in November, 1885, to give aid and counsel to General Stone, David H. King, Jr., builder, and their engineers, mechanics and workmen. The great skeleton was set up, the surrounding auxiliary structure installed, and the hundreds of hammered copper sections of the statue were fitted together, held by more than 300,000 copper rivets. Dedication of the Statue In a heavy mist with occasional showers of cold rain, on October 28, 1886, the Statue of Liberty was dedicated. New York City declared a general holiday and the City of Brooklyn closed its schools for the day.  National Park Service. STATUE OF LIBERTY NATIONAL MONUMENT Proposed development by United States Department of Interior, National Park Service. A grand military and civic parade was reviewed during the forenoon at Madison Square by President Grover Cleveland, Secretary of State Thomas F. Bayard of Delaware, Secretary of War William C. Endicott of Massachusetts, Secretary of the Navy William C. Whitney of New York, Secretary of the Interior Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar of Georgia, Governor David B. Hill and staff, and other French and American notables of the day. The parade crossed City Hall Park, proceeded down Park Row and Broadway and disbanded at the Battery. The President and the Governor boarded U.S.S. Despatch at West Twenty-third Street, accompanied by the Americans and Frenchmen who were to take part in the afternoon exercises at Bedloe's Island. The little vessel led the other craft down the North River and into the Upper Bay. Behind her, steamed in double column the entire motley flotilla of nearly 300 tugs, yachts and excursion steamers carrying military and other organizations -- each vessel in her designated position. The limited area and wharf age of Bedloe's Island prevented the landing of all but participants in the un- veiling. The vessels bearing the great floating audience took their assigned positions around the broader eastern end of the pear- shaped island close to the anchored squadron of eight white-hulled, steam-propelled, full-rigged warships of the U.S. Navy under the command of Rear Admiral Stephen B. Luce, war veteran and founder of the Naval War College. At anchor also lay several French warships. As the Commander-in-Chief approached, "the men-of-war's men were seen springing aloft in the rigging. Spryly they ran out along the yards and stood elbow to elbow," the New-York Herd~d re- ported. "The rainbow of fluttering bunting that arched each frigate and corvette contrasted prettily with the blue suits of the jolly tars." The Presidential Salute of twenty-one guns blazed away from the warships and the harbor fortifications, filling the air with white smoke. On a large platform at the foot of the pedestal, within the star- shaped ramparts and facing a seated audience of about 2500, were already assembled governors of states, members of Congress, the American Committee, officers of the Army and Navy, and the orators of the day. The President -- followed by the members of his cabinet and others -- was escorted to his seat. Amid the tre- mendous din, the rendering by Gilmore's band of "Hail to the Chief!" counted for little. During a lull, the Rev. Dr. Richard S. Storrs began a solemn prayer, parts of which were drowned out by the enthusiastic blasts of steam whistles. The mist obscured many of the vessels, but when the whistles blew, the great size of the ffotilla was appreciated. It was said that a million people, afloat and ashore, saw through the mist at least a part of the inauguration. Bareheaded in the cold drizzle, the aged Count de Lesseps, his white upturned mustache unwilted, was the first orator; he spoke in French. Senator Evarts, former Secretary of State, began reading his address. At the end of an eloquent passage he received a round of hearty applause. Bartholdi, with three others, had gone up into the statue and had laid hold of the rope with which he was to pull away the rain-darkened French flag, which enshrouded Liberty's head, and thus unveil his masterpiece. This was the culmination of the labors of the best part of his life. The applause, he thought, marked the end of Evarts' oration, when the unveiling was to take place. He pulled the rope. The masters of the hundreds of steam craft, discovering the giant countenance of Liberty, unanimously saluted her with their whistles. Senator Evarts stopped reading. In a momentary lull, the Senator was about to continue when U.S.S. Tentzesses, flagship of the squadron, fired a broadside. The band struck up "My Country, 'tis of Thee." When this was over, the Senator went on to the end of his address, while the din slowly subsided. During the whole time Evarts was on his feet President Cleve- land -- who possessed a keen sense of humor -- apparently gave the inaudible speech his most grave and concentrated attention. The President, having taken the trouble to compress his oration, accepted the statue in one paragraph packed with meaning: "The people of the United States accept with gratitude from their brethren of the French Republic the grand and complete work of art we here inaugurate. This token of the affection and con- sideration of the people of France demonstrates the kinship of republics, and conveys to us the assurance that in our efforts to commend to mankind the excellence of a government resting upon popular will, we still have beyond the American continent a stead- fast ally. We are not here today to bow before the representation of a fierce warlike god, filled with wrath and vengeance, but we joyously contemplate instead our own deity keeping watch and ward before the open gates of America and greater than all that have been celebrated in ancient song. Instead of grasping in her hand thunderbolts of terror and of death, she holds aloft the light which illumines the way to man's enfranchisement. We will  Adapted from T. Johnson engraving, Century Magazine, October, 1888. EMMA LAZARUS 1849-1887 With strong faith in America as the refuge of the oppressed, she wrote "The New Colossus," which is inscribed on a tablet inside the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty and appears on the half-title page of this book. not forget that Liberty has here made her home, nor shall her chosen altar be neglected. Willing votaries will constantly keep alive its fires and these shall gleam upon the shores of our sister Republic thence, and joined with answering rays a stream of light shall pierce the darkness of ignorance and man's oppression, until Liberty enlightens the world." The French delegation consisted of fifteen men -- including Vice-Admiral Jaures, General Pelissier, Deputies Spuller and Desmons, and Napoleon Ney -- but the only French official orator was the Minister to the United States, W. A. LeFaivre. In his address, Chauncey M. Depew, later United States Senator from New York, and at this time counsel for the New York Central and other railroads, touched upon the fraternal relations between this country and France and said, "This Statue of Lib- erty 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 fired the farmer's gun at Lexington, and razed the Bastille at Paris; which inspired the charter in the cabin of the Mayflower and the Declaration of Independence from the Con- tinental Congress." Assistant Bishop Henry C. Potter -- who was soon to get under way the building of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, Morn- ingside Heights, New York, removed his rain-soaked mortar-board and pronounced the benediction. When the Despatch headed upstream, with the President stand- ing in the cold rain on the forward uncovered deck, the guns of the warships and forts again roared out a salute. The Statue as Inspiration While the pedestal on Bedloe's Island was building, and at the time of the inauguration of the monument, many artists and poets were inspired by the colossal statue and the idea it symbolized. Noah Davis, James Boyle O'Reilly, Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Esther Singleton, and others joined the chorus of praise. John Greenleaf Whittler, then nearly eighty years of age, wrote a poem of six stanzas including these two: Unlike the shapes on Egypt's sands Uplifted by the toil-worn slave, On Freedom's soil with freemen's hands We rear the symbol free hands gave ... Rise, stately symbol! holding forth Thy light and hope to all who sit In chains and darkness ! Belt the earth With watch-fires from thy torch uplit ! John Hay called Edmund Clarence Stedman's poem "the most powerful, vibrant poem of occasion anyone has written in our time." The following is one of the stanzas, in which Liberty speaks:
"The New Colossus," best known of the Statue of Liberty poems, was written in 1883 to aid the pedestal fund by New York-born Emma Lazarus, an early advocate of what is now called the Zionist movement. Twenty years after she had published her sonnet (see half-title page of this book) it was cast in bronze and placed, by the philanthropist Georgina Schuyler, on the interior wall of the pedestal.  The New York Trust Company collection. HAIL AMERICA Like other great artists, Joseph Pennell, the famous illustrator, was inspired by the Statue of Liberty and used it a number of times in his etchings and lithographs. This mezzotint, of which he made forty impressions in 1909, is possibly his finest view of the Statue of Liberty. The Statue was also the central figure in Pennell's famous Liberty Loan poster, considered by many to be the most effective of American war posters of the period 1917-1918. (In reverse as in the original.)  SOME OF THE POSTAGE STAMPS SHOWING THE STATUE Julian Hawthorne's tribute was in prose: "Though the bronze goddess stands motionless and firm, she seems but a moment ago to have assumed the attitude which she will retain through centuries to come. She has stepped forward, and halted, and raised her torch into the sky. There is energy without effort and movement combined with repose. Her aspect is grave almost to sternness; yet her faultless features wear the serenity of power and confidence. Her message is the sublimest ever brought to man, but she is adequate to its delivery. In her left hand she holds a tablet inscribed with the most glorious of our memories, the birthday of the Republic. No words are needed to interpret her meaning, for her gesture and her countenance speak the universal language, and their utterance reaches to the purest depth of the human soul." Since the Statue of Liberty has stood at the principal gateway of the nation, this cherished national monument -- as great in signi- ficance as it is in size -- has become increasingly an inspiration not only to poets and artists but to all our people. Pictures and small replicas of it are in numberless American homes. The annual total of visitors from all parts of the country is expected to increase when the National Park Service of the Department of the Interior carries out its plans to enlarge the wharfage and improve the facilities at Bedloe's Island. When the 77th Division, composed of men from metropolitan NewYork was organized during the First World War, it appro- priately adopted the Statue of Liberty as its insignia. This is the division of which the famous so-called "Lost Battalion" was a writ. The warriors of the 77th, whose homes were in the shadow of the statue, received their baptism of fire on the battlefields of the country whose people had given the statue to their native land. Reconsti- tuted during the present war, the 77th Division, wearing the same insignia, again is fighting for the cause of liberty. Although the statue has not been used on our coins, it has carried far and wide its message of liberty on millions of our postage stamps and on those of at least five other countries. Special Events From time to time, special attention is drawn to the Statue of Liberty -- as when President Theodore Roosevelt in 1904, on the occasion of Bartholdi's death at the age of seventy, cabled a mes- sage of condolence to Madame Bartholdi "in the name of the American people." In 1916, when France had been fighting for her life for more than two years against the ancient enemy, President Wilson came to New York and after sunset on December 2, from the deck of the Presidential yacht, U.S.S. Mayflower, off Bedloe's Island, ded- icated the first flood-lighting system of the statue. At a banquet in New York that night, the President said: "There is a great responsibility in having adopted Liberty as an ideal because we must illustrate it in what we do ... Throughout the last two years there has come more and more into my heart the conviction that peace is going to come to the world only with Liberty." Other speakers were the French Ambassador, Jules J. Jusserand, Chauncey M. Depew, who had also spoken at the inauguration of the statue, and Ralph Pulitzer, the son of Joseph. Said the French envoy: "Not to a man, not to a nation the statue was raised, not to a man, famous and useful as he may have been, not to a nation great as she may be. It was raised to an idea -- an idea greater than any man or any nation, greater than France or the United States -- the idea of Liberty!" From Bedloe's Island on October 28, 1936, exactly fifty years after the unveiling of the statue, at a period when Laboulaye's grandson, Andre, was French Ambassador to the United States, President Franklin D. Roosevelt broadcast an address, to which President Albert Lebrun and our Ambassador William C. Bullitt responded by radio. President Roosevelt said, "Citizens of all democracies unite in their desire for peace. Grover Cleveland fifty years ago recognized that unity of purpose on this very spot ... Liberty and peace are living things. In each generation -- if they are to be maintained -- they must be guarded and vitalized anew." In war and in peace, the serene and majestic figure, typifying the hopes and aspirations of mankind, will remain, in the words of Laboulaye, "a symbol that braves the storms of time. It will stand unshaken in the midst of the winds that roar about its head and the waves that shatter at its feet."  Photograph by I. M. Levitt, Assistant Director of the Fels Planetarium of the Franklin Institute. Philadelphia. Pennsylvania. Return to Statue of Liberty Homepage This page maintained by Gary Feuerstein 7 May 2000 
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