The Statue of Liberty, in New York’s Harbour was designed by Frederic Batholdi and dedicated in 1886 and was a gift from France to the people of the United States. The French and American political situations in the latter half of the nineteenth century meant that work did not begin on the statue until the start of the eighteen seventies. Eventually the statue became a joint project between France and America; the Americans financed the pedestal and the French the statue itself. The female statue is meant to represent the figure of the Roman Goddess of freedom, Libertas. The Statue has become the American symbol of freedom, the torch in the statue’s raised hand is meant to symbolise enlightenment of the world and the broken chain at its feet is echoed in the lines inscribed in a metal plate at the base of the statue:
“Bring me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses
Yearning to breathe free.”
The lines were written by poet Emma Lazarus, at first she declined the assignment but here feeling for the poor refugees who were entering the United States at that time, prompted a change of heart and the world famous lines above.
The statue was a symbol of hope to the thousands of immigrants who came to America in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The iron framework of the statue was anchored to steel l- beams inside the pedestal and assembled and the sections of the statue’s skin laid across the framework. It wasn’t possible to use scaffolding for the erection of the statue because the base was not large enough to support it. The workers erecting it swung from ropes that were attached to the amature, in order to lay on the sections of skin.
In spite of the dangerous nature of the work, there was not a single death during the statue’s construction. A power plant was installed inside the statue to illuminate the torch. Originally, the skin on the statue was of a copper colour, but by 1900, oxidation of the copper resulted in the statue having a green patina. At about this time a lift was installed to take visitors to the top of the pedestal where there was an observation platform.
There were parades and tickertape as part of the celebrations that surrounded the dedication of the statue in 1886, members of the public were excluded from the ceremony and only two females were allowed as there was a fear that women might be injured if there was a rush. Suffragettes were offended by the ban and charted a boat to get them as close as possible to Bedloe’s Island.
Until 1901 the statue was administered by the United States Lighthouse Board. Subsequently, the statue came under the auspices of the Department of War until it passed into the hands of the National Park Service, which has administered it up to the present day. Major restoration was needed by the nineteen eighties as the statue had considerably deteriorated. The pedestal was finally repaired in 2994 and the repairs on the statue itself were completed in 2009.