Posted by Museum Intern Hannah Bothner
“Give me your tired,
your poor/Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free”
These are the famous words of American poet Emma Lazarus
written about the Statue of Liberty, an international symbol of freedom and
democracy. The statue arrived at the New York Harbor in 350 pieces on this day
129 years ago.
The Statue arrived at the New York Harbor June 17, 1885, as a
gift from France to the United States. Originally the statue was meant to be a
gift for the 100th anniversary of the United States’ Declaration of
Independence, but due to fundraising difficulties it was not finished in time. Instead
it became a gift of friendship between the two nations and commemorates the
American Revolution.
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Wilbur Wright flies around the Statue of Liberty in 1909. |
The statue was completed in Paris in 1884; it was then dismantled
and shipped across the Atlantic Ocean in more than 200 separate cases. It was
reassembled over the following year and dedicated with a ceremony on October
28, 1886 by President Grover Cleveland. The statue resides on Bedloe Island
between New York City and Hudson County, New Jersey. Bedloe Island was later
renamed Liberty Island and carries that name to this day. The French sculptor
Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi designed the statue with help from French engineer
Gustave Eiffel. Bartholdi modeled the statue after his mother. The statue
weighs about 450,000 pounds and is over 305 feet tall from the base of the
pedestal to the top of its torch. At first, the statue was a copper color, as
it is made of copper and iron. Over time a natural color change occurred and
created the greenish-blue color that we see today.
Six years after the dedication, Ellis Island was opened near
Liberty Island as the main immigration center for the United States. For 62
years after Ellis Island’s opening in 1892, the Statue of Liberty watched over
more than 12 million immigrants who arrived at Ellis Island in hopes of finding
a better life in the United States. The words of Emma Lazarus, printed above,
became a symbol of the vision that the United States had for itself, a nation
of opportunity for immigrants.
Ellis Island |
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