essay on the statue of liberty

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What is the Statue of Liberty?

Who sculpted the statue of liberty, why is the statue of liberty important.

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Statue of Liberty

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The Statue of Liberty is a 305-foot (93-metre) statue located on Liberty Island in Upper New York Bay, off the coast of New York City . The statue is a personification of liberty in the form of a woman. She holds a torch in her raised right hand and clutches a tablet in her left.

When was the Statue of Liberty built?

The Statue of Liberty was built in France between 1875 and 1884. It was disassembled and shipped to New York City in 1885. The statue was reassembled on Liberty Island in 1886, although the torch has been redesigned or restored several times since its installation.

The Statue of Liberty was sculpted between 1875 and 1884 under the direction of French sculptor  Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi , who began drafting designs in 1870. Bartholdi and his team hammered roughly 31 tons of copper sheets onto a steel frame. Before being mounted on its current pedestal, the statue stood over 151 feet (46 metres) tall and weighed 225 tons.

What is the Statue of Liberty holding?

In her raised right hand, the Statue of Liberty holds a torch. This represents the light that shows observers the path to freedom. In her left hand, she clutches a tablet bearing “JULY IV MDCCLXXVI,” the Declaration of Independence ’s adoption date in Roman numerals.

The Statue of Liberty is one of the most instantly recognizable statues in the world, often viewed as a symbol of both New York City and the United States . Additionally, the statue is situated near Ellis Island , where millions of immigrants were received until 1943. Because of this, the Statue of Liberty is also understood to represent hope, freedom, and justice.

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Statue of Liberty , colossal statue on Liberty Island in the Upper New York Bay, U.S., commemorating the friendship of the peoples of the United States and France . Standing 305 feet (93 metres) high including its pedestal , it represents a woman holding a torch in her raised right hand and a tablet bearing the adoption date of the Declaration of Independence (July 4, 1776) in her left. The torch, which measures 29 feet (8.8 metres) from the flame tip to the bottom of the handle, is accessible via a 42-foot (12.8-metre) service ladder inside the arm (this ascent was open to the public from 1886 to 1916). An elevator carries visitors to the observation deck in the pedestal, which may also be reached by stairway, and a spiral staircase leads to an observation platform in the figure’s crown. A plaque at the pedestal’s entrance is inscribed with a sonnet , “ The New Colossus ” (1883) by Emma Lazarus . It was written to help raise money for the pedestal, and it reads:

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!”

A French historian, Édouard de Laboulaye, made the proposal for the statue in 1865. Funds were contributed by the French people, and work began in France in 1875 under sculptor Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi . The statue was constructed of copper sheets, hammered into shape by hand and assembled over a framework of four gigantic steel supports, designed by Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc and Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel . The colossus was presented to the American minister to France Levi Morton (later vice president) in a ceremony in Paris on July 4, 1884. In 1885 the completed statue, 151 feet 1 inch (46 metres) high and weighing 225 tons, was disassembled and shipped to New York City . The pedestal, designed by American architect Richard Morris Hunt and built within the walls of Fort Wood on Bedloe’s Island, was completed later. The statue, mounted on its pedestal, was dedicated by President Grover Cleveland on October 28, 1886. Over the years the torch underwent several modifications, including its conversion to electric power in 1916 and its redesign (with repoussé copper sheathed in gold leaf) in the mid-1980s, when the statue was repaired and restored by both American and French workers for a centennial celebration held in July 1986. The site was added to UNESCO’s World Heritage List in 1984.

The statue was at first administered by the U.S. Lighthouse Board, as the illuminated torch was considered a navigational aid. Because Fort Wood was still an operational Army post, responsibility for the maintenance and operation of the statue was transferred in 1901 to the War Department. It was declared a national monument in 1924, and in 1933 the administration of the statue was placed under the National Park Service . Fort Wood was deactivated in 1937, and the rest of the island was incorporated into the monument. In 1956 Bedloe’s Island was renamed Liberty Island , and in 1965 nearby Ellis Island , once the country’s major immigration station, was added to the monument’s jurisdiction, bringing its total area to about 58 acres (about 24 hectares). Exhibits on the history of the Statue of Liberty, including the statue’s original 1886 torch, were contained in the statue’s base until 2018, when they were moved to the adjacent Statue of Liberty Museum.

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Statue of Liberty: The Making of an Icon

By: Patrick J. Kiger

Updated: April 25, 2024 | Original: May 14, 2019

The Statue of Liberty , which towers 305 feet, six inches over New York Harbor, is one of the most instantly recognizable symbols of America. It has inspired countless souvenir replicas and been referenced in everything from posters for war bonds to the final scene of the 1968 movie “Planet of the Apes,” in which an astronaut who returns to Earth in the distant future discovers it partially buried in sand.

But the statue that’s known across the planet went through an odd, serendipitous journey to iconic status. It was conceived by a French sculptor, Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, who had never even been to the United States before arriving in 1871 in hopes of convincing Americans to support his dream of building a monumental statue.

His design for the Statue of Liberty borrowed from an earlier idea he’d had for a colossal woman bearing a lantern at the entrance of the Suez Canal . The proposed figure he called “Liberty Enlightening the World,” was a woman wearing a crown of rays and holding a torch aloft in one hand and a tablet in the other. He originally scouted Central Park as a possible location, before settling upon what was then Bedloe’s Island.

Bartholdi traveled across the United States from Washington, D.C. to Los Angeles to promote his idea, but when he wasn’t able to secure government support, he went back to France and started working with his friend Edouard de Laboulaye , who for years had wanted to build a French-American monument.

“Laboulaye was a very great admirer of the United States,” American University historian Alan Kraut says in a podcast, “Raising the Torch,” created for the Statue of Liberty Museum. “He was particularly excited about the outcome of the America Civil War, the emancipation of 4 million slaves, and also the long relationship the United States had had with France.”

In 1875, Laboulaye formed the Franco-American Union to raise $250,000 to finance Bartholdi’s creation of the statue. The idea was that Americans, in turn, would raise money for the statue’s base.

But it wasn’t that easy to get people in the United States—particularly in New York City, where it was to be located—excited about putting up money for the project. In 1876, to drum up more enthusiasm, Bartholdi exhibited the statue’s hand and torch at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition. When skeptics in New York questioned why he wasn’t showing more of the body, Bartholdi dropped hints that he might just put the finished statue in Philadelphia instead. New Yorkers, not wanting to be shown up, quickly agreed to exhibit the hand and torch in Madison Square to advertise the project and stimulate more contributions, according to the New York Public Library .

In the 1880s, the American Committee for the Statue of Liberty raised money for the construction of the statue’s pedestal by selling small souvenir models of the planned statue, which ranged from $1 for a six-inch replica to $5 for a foot-high version, which were marketed through a nationwide campaign. The effort led to the spread of miniature Statues of Liberty throughout the United States and the world and helped establish the statue in the public imagination as a symbol of America.

A variety of other fundraising efforts were staged, ranging from theatrical galas to prizefights, according to Christine Garnaut’s and Donald Langmead’s Encyclopedia of Architectural and Engineering Feats. Emma Lazarus wrote a poem, “The New Colossus,” which was read at a fundraising art exhibition in 1883. (Two decades later, it was inscribed on a bronze plaque on the inner wall of the pedestal.) Lazarus’ stirring plea to "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” helped to make the statue more than just a celebration of American democracy, by linking it with the waves of immigrants arriving in America in the late 1800s, and their aspirations for a better life.

“Laboulaye uses America as a symbol of good things. He sees Bartholdi as the tool by which he can achieve his aim of giving a gift,” Barry Moreno, historian and curator for the Ellis Island National Museum of Immigration, says in the “Raising the Torch” podcast.

When even those heroic fundraising efforts weren’t enough, Joseph Pulitzer , publisher of the tabloid New York World , came to the project’s rescue. Pulitzer ran a March 1885 article in his newspaper, which prodded readers into contributing more money for the base by pointing out that the statue itself had been paid for by “the masses of the French people—by the working men, the tradesmen, the shop girls, the artisans—by all, irrespective of class or condition.” Americans had to do their part as well, Pulitzer exhorted, and it worked. The newspaper was able to raise $100,000 to complete the project, most of it in donations of $1 or less.

But while the campaign to finish the pedestal—in some ways, an early version of today’s GoFundMe campaigns—required hustle, it ultimately helped Americans to feel a sense of ownership and connection to the statue, even though it had been created on the other side of the Atlantic.

As Magnuson-Cannady, supervising ranger for the National Park Service tells the “Raising the Torch” podcast, “The Statue of Liberty was really of the people in that the people of the United States and the people of France...not the super wealthy, not the super powerful—it was everyday folks contributing to the fundraising efforts and paying for the Statue of Liberty and the pedestal.”

In 1885, the statue arrived—in 350 pieces —in New York, where it took a year to be assembled because the pedestal hadn’t yet been completed. Finally, in October 1886, the Statue of Liberty was dedicated at a ceremony during which the crowd was interrupted by a full 15 minutes of applause before President Grover Cleveland could begin a brief speech in which he proclaimed that “she holds aloft the light which illumines the way to man’s enfranchisement.”

The massive statue’s magnificence instantly made it into a tourist magnet. As Barry Moreno explains in his 2017 pictorial history of the Statue of Liberty , Congress’s passage of the Private Card Mailing Act of 1898, which authorized private companies to produce postcards as long as they adhered to certain size and quality standards, also helped boost its profile, because people who visited bought inexpensive color postcards and sent them to friends and neighbors.

The market for Statue of Liberty postcards, in fact, became so lucrative that 11 years later, American printers convinced Congress to ban the importation of foreign-made postcards that depicted the statue and other quintessential “American scenes.”

How the Statue of Liberty Got Across the Atlantic

You might know that the Statue of Liberty was built in France, but how exactly did they move the 225‑ton icon to the United States?

Why the Statue of Liberty Almost Didn’t Get Built

Although France paid for the statue, the US had to pay for the pedestal.

The Statue of Liberty Has Long Been a Magnet for Protest

Dissent at or inside the statue began with its unveiling in 1886.

The statue became an even more prominent American symbol during World War I , when it became one of the sights that U.S. soldiers gazed upon as they sailed off to fight in Europe, as well as one of the first things they glimpsed when they finally returned home.

The opening of a new $100 million museum on Liberty Island in 2019, paid for by private donations, further reinforces the Statue of Liberty as a monument cherished by people around the world. Timed to the May 2019 opening of the museum, the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation created an app featuring Apple’s augmented reality software, along with the “Raising the Torch” podcast to enhance the museum experience. Also featured in the new museum are a series of eight short films by HISTORY that outline fundraising and construction efforts behind the Statue of Liberty, how it became a symbol of home and democracy during wartime and its global significance as an icon representing equality and immigration.

“The statue is a kind of malleable or plastic figure,” Kraut says. “It can come to embody the kinds of definitions that one lends to the notion of freedom, itself.”

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Overview + History

The statue of liberty.

She is an icon, a national treasure, and one of the most recognizable figures in the world. Each year millions who cherish her ideals make the journey to experience her history and grandeur in person. She is the Statue of Liberty, a symbol of freedom, inspiration, and hope.

Conceptualizing Liberty

It was 1865 when Frenchman Édouard de Laboulaye proposed the idea of presenting a monumental gift from the people of France to the people of the United States. A n arden t   s uppor t er of America , Laboulaye wished to commemorate the centennial of the Declaration of Independence as well as celebrate the close relationship between France and America. He was equally moved by the recent abolition of slavery in the U.S., which furthered America’s ideals of liberty and freedom.

Sculptor Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi was in attendance for Laboulaye’s proclamation. Of like mind with Laboulaye’s cause, Bartholdi began conceptualizing the colossal structure that would soon be known as Liberty Enlightening the World .

Bartholdi’s design encompassed much symbolism: her crown representing light with its spikes evoking sun rays extending out to the world; the tablet, inscribed with July 4, 1776 in Roman numerals, noting American independence; to symbolize the end of slavery, Bartholdi placed a broken shackle and chains at the Statue’s foot.

Funding the Dream

Fundraising and bringing people together have always been integral to Lady Liberty’s history. It began with efforts to finance this unprecedented undertaking. France would be responsible for creating the Statue and assembling it in the United States while the American people would fund and build the pedestal.

To raise funds in France, public fees, various forms of entertainment, and a lottery were used. In the U.S., to finance the pedestal, benefit theatrical events, art exhibitions, auctions, and prizefights were held. Poet Emma Lazarus wrote her famous sonnet The New Colossus  in 1883 for an art and literary auction.

Despite these efforts, fundraising for the pedestal went slowly. To spark public action, in 1885, Joseph Pulitzer placed an ad in his paper the New York World inviting readers to donate to the cause. In exchange, Pulitzer printed each donor’s name in the newspaper. The public rose to the challenge with 120,000 people donating over $100,000 and securing the remaining funds needed for the Statue’s pedestal.

Meanwhile in France, Bartholdi required the assistance of an engineer to address structural issues associated with designing such a colossal copper sculpture. Alexandre Gustave Eiffel, just prior to creating his famed Tower, was engaged to design the massive iron pylon and secondary skeletal framework that allows the Statue’s copper skin to move independently yet stand upright.

Construction of the Statue was completed in France in July 1884. The massive sculpture stood tall above the rooftops of Paris awaiting her voyage across the sea.

Back in America that same year architect Richard Morris Hunt was selected to design the Statue’s granite pedestal, and construction got underway.

Crossing the Atlantic

For its trans-Atlantic voyage aboard the frigate Isère, the Statue was reduced to 350 individual pieces and packed in 214 crates. The ship arrived in New York Harbor on June 17, 1885. While awaiting construction of its pedestal, the Statue remained in pieces on what was then called Bedloe’s Island. The pedestal was completed in April 1886 and finally, on October 28, 1886, President Grover Cleveland oversaw the dedication of the Statue of Liberty in front of thousands of spectators.

The story of the Statue of Liberty and her island has been one of change. For centuries the island was a major source of food for the Lenape native people and later Dutch settlers. In 1807, the U.S. Army deemed the island a military post, constructing an 11-point fort to protect New York Harbor. Later renamed Fort Wood, the structure now serves as the base for the Statue’s pedestal. The Statue’s own meaning and relevance have evolved with time, as well. Perhaps most notable is the association with welcoming “huddled masses.” In 1903, a plaque baring “The New Colossus” was placed in the pedestal. With that Lady Liberty’s significance grew as an inspiration to immigrants who sailed passed her on their way to America.

The Statue of Liberty's Original Torch

As Bartholdi envisioned it in 1874, the flame of the Statue’s torch was not to be lighted but rather made of solid copper sheet and gilded to shine brightly in daylight. But during its first half-century, the torch underwent numerous modifications. When the Statue was dedicated in 1886, two rows of portholes had been cut from the copper at the bottom of the torch to illuminate it from inside. Six years later, an 18-inch belt of glass replaced the upper row of portholes and an octagonal pyramidal skylight with red, white and yellow glass was installed on top of the flame. Changes continued in 1916 when copper was removed in about 250 places and replaced with amber-colored cathedral glass. In 1931 a new lighting system was installed that called for two holes 16 inches in diameter to be cut into the floor of the balcony around the flame through which two projectors were installed. By this time, Bartholdi’s design was barely recognizable.

In the 1980s when the Foundation was restoring the Statue for its centennial celebration, a team of experts determined that the original torch could not be restored. A century of modifications had radically altered Bartholdi’s solid copper flame to one mainly of glass. Leaks from rain and corrosion from the elements had damaged the original torch above the handle beyond repair. It was removed on July 4, 1984 and replaced with a replica that followed Bartholdi’s design.

Today, the original torch is on display in the Inspiration Gallery of the Statue of Liberty Museum.

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• Light of democracy, the Statue of Liberty

A gift from France welcomed generations of immigrants

• The idea for the Statue of Liberty originated with Édouard Laboulaye, a historian of American history and advocate for French democracy. Laboulaye conceived of a symbol that represented a nation that valued liberty and freedom, prompted by the abolition of slavery in the United States after the Civil War. The sculpture was commissioned in 1876, the centennial year of the United States.
• The statue, designed by Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, was financed by the people of France and America, rather than by governments. Sections of the statue were exhibited at World’s Fairs to raise money. The French raised 400,000 francs for the sculpture, and the Americans needed to raise around 250,000 dollars for the pedestal.
• The final pedestal funds were raised in less than six months, mainly from donations of less than a dollar. The people who donated — many of them poor, many of them immigrants — showed their belief in American ideals and ideologies.
• The sculpture takes an abstract idea — liberty — and personifies it in the tradition of ancient Greek and Roman sculpture. The seven spikes of her crown reference the seven seas and seven continents, symbolizing the idea of liberty spreading throughout the world. She holds a tablet that holds the date July 4, 1776 written in Roman numerals.
• Gustave Eiffel, the designer of the Eiffel Tower, engineered the interior structure of the statue so that it could survive the heavy winds it is subjected to. The thin copper sheets are supported inside by a system of four pylons that have a web of supports connected to them that independently stabilize each copper sheet.

Official website from the National Parks Service

Statue of Liberty: Topics in Chronicling America at the Library of Congress

Primary sources on historical immigration from the Library of Congress

Newspaper and periodical resources from the Library of Congress

Rediscovering An Ornate Cast Of Cast-Iron Buildings (New York Times)

Biography of Bartholdi from the National Gallery of Art

A “committee model” replica of the Statue of Liberty at The Metropolitan Museum of Art

More to think about

The design of the Statue of Liberty and its pedestal relies on references to ancient Greek, Roman, and Egyptian art. Do you think that the average person who contributed to Joseph Pulitzer’s fundraising campaign understood those artistic references? If not, why do you think they used those references anyway?

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The Many Conflicting Identities of the Statue of Liberty

Eastern and western, feminine and masculine, motherly yet ready for war, the sculpture holds a multitude of meanings.

Courtesy of the New York Public Library .

by Francesca Lidia Viano | November 5, 2018

In the years since, Bartholdi’s statue has come to mean many things to the millions of people she has welcomed to America. For some, she is a tender mother protecting the “huddled masses yearning to breathe free”; for others, she is the guardian of the nation’s ideals—liberty and democracy—against foreign threats. For Bartholdi, too, the statue captured a variety of meanings, like the dignity and rectitude he discovered in cities such as New York, Boston, and Philadelphia alongside the wildness he relished elsewhere in the young nation.

When Bartholdi arrived at New York Harbor on June 21, 1871, he was on a quest to meet potential clients (as he put it, rich “connoisseurs”) to buy his art. His friend and patron, the liberal author Édouard de Laboulaye, admired the United States, and had suggested Bartholdi could bolster his reputation there by building a monument to celebrate Franco-American friendship during the War of Independence.

Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi. Courtesy of Napoleon Sarony/ Wikimedia Commons .

Bartholdi had an idea of what his statue would look like—her basic design was a holdover from an earlier idea he’d had for Egypt—but he needed to refine his vision, find a location, and get financial backing to get it built. To accomplish these things, he would stay in America for more than three months, traveling from Boston to San Francisco.

Bartholdi’s distinct sensibility owed much to his mother, Charlotte, who had been widowed when he was only two. Beautiful and strict, Charlotte was a skilled manager of the family’s connections and properties who made her boys learn English and music, toured with them to London and the Pyrenees, read them Cicero and Goethe, and enrolled them in the atelier of Ary Scheffer in Paris, where they learned to paint and sculpt. Scheffer, a republican, introduced Bartholdi to his political friends, but Bartholdi was no activist: He cultivated friends and clients among republican activists, monarchical nostalgics, and the powerful Napoleonic elites of the Second Empire.

As an adult, Bartholdi still often lived with (and always for) his possessive mother. When he needed a break from her, he journeyed abroad. Between 1854 and 1867, he visited Egypt twice, and travelled through Bavaria, Corsica, Florence, Naples, Rome, and Venice. Dressed in a white turban and a loose tunic, he sailed the Nile and unwrapped mummies in the desert. He mulled building a colossal statue, brandishing a torch, at the Red Sea entrance of the newly dug Suez Canal. His design looked like a female fellah , or Egyptian peasant, and was intended as an anthropomorphic lighthouse celebrating French and Egyptian gifts of civilization to the East.

By 1869, it had become clear that financing a statue in Egypt was going to be impossible, so Bartholdi decided to try to build his colossus in the United States. Charlotte objected to the idea, skeptical that, as her son put it, “the same principles” could be applicable to “two hemispheres.” The leap from the Nile to the Hudson seems unlikely, but many 19th-century European observers considered America an exotic place, notable for its “dirt, untidiness, and noise” and also for the “Oriental” look of its “multitude of flat roofs, topped by a thousand chimneys.” By 1871, Bartholdi was already drawing on such ideas to show that Egyptian monuments could, indeed, be made to suit the United States.

Unpacking the head of the Statue of Liberty, New York. Courtesy of Wikimedida Commons .

On board the S/S Pereire , Bartholdi approached New York with an anticipation that he had rarely felt before: ferries crossed the harbor like “colossal flies” and yachts glided “over the surface of the water … like marchionesses with their long trains.” Bartholdi grabbed his notebook and sketched a version of his statue as a sort of Venus springing from the water—a strange Venus, indeed, with her arm stretched high like a colossal mast and her tunic pulled by the wind like a sail. Later to his mother, he described Bedloe’s Island, today known as Liberty Island, in deeply religious terms. It was, he said, the virtual point of convergence of the East and Hudson Rivers, dividing New York into three parts (Manhattan, New Jersey, and Brooklyn) as if “to explain the mystery of Trinity.” He marked Bedloe’s Island with a bright red spot on his map.

Ashore, the heat was intolerable, the city almost deserted. The few businessmen Bartholdi met there gave him the cold shoulder because, as he put it, they had “little enthusiasm for anything but themselves and the almighty dollar.” His meetings in the region were disappointing, sometimes even embarrassing. New York intellectuals bored him.

Bartholdi eventually visited Long Branch, New Jersey, and the summer home of President Ulysses S. Grant. In Long Branch, Bartholdi found himself in the middle of a beach crowded with swimmers, where he was the only one wearing a French swimsuit that, he realized too late, was “too skimpy” for the occasion. Later, when the toy importer Richard Butler invited Bartholdi to his New York mansion, he held forth about “religion, high principle, and so on” for hours on end, never offering the artist anything to eat. To his mother, Bartholdi wrote that the United States reminded him of “the principles you inculcated in me”—that is, moral austerity.

That was truer in some cities than in others. Bartholdi arrived in Boston on Sunday, June 29, on a brand-new Pullman train car, to the city deserted—“not a sound to be heard, not a person to be seen.” Seemingly, the living had all gone to church. Soon, Bartholdi visited the nearby city of Plymouth, where the sculptor Charles Hammatt Billings was gathering funds to build a monument commemorating the Pilgrims, the National Monument to the Forefathers: a gigantic, elegant woman, dressed in classical attire, holding the Bible with her left hand and pointing to the sky with her right. Bartholdi did not mention this visit to his mother, perhaps because he was too proud to admit that someone else had a plan so similar to his own. In any case, Bartholdi may have borrowed from the Plymouth project, which was completed in 1889, to transform his Egyptian fellah into a book-carrying Puritan icon.

Increasingly, however, Bartholdi began to appreciate a wilder side of the country. Venturing from Niagara Falls to the Great Lakes, he arrived in Chicago, where he saw “a combination of movement” that he had not yet seen in America, “maritime, terrestrial, pedestrian, and, I could say, subterranean.” Next, he travelled to Omaha, where he saw a woman undress and remove her “mountains of fake hair” behind only a gauzy curtain. He saw an untamed landscape “plunge into valleys and gorges” in the Rocky Mountains—“diabolical, something out of a fairy tale.” In San Francisco, he marveled at the sight of Asian prostitutes waiting under dim lanterns. From his diaries and letters, it is clear that these picaresque aspects of America dramatically impressed him. He was taken with the boldness of the American character and landscape, and its brazen search for the new.

Statue of Liberty Arm, 1876, Phildadelphis Centennial Exposition. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons .

America, Bartholdi once observed during his travels, was “an adorable lady chewing tobacco,” a beautiful woman with poor manners or, perhaps, a pretty lass made more charming by her coarse behavior. He commented, with admiration, that the citizens of the United States were the “ultimate oseurs ”—daring people, always defying common sense in the pursuit of innovation. “Sometimes they get it wrong, like all those who look for something, but among the infinite numbers of their efforts, there are always some that honor the spirit of invention.”

Bartholdi, too, was an oseur . His statue—colossal and metallic like the American technological inventions he so admired, looking like a ship sailing toward Europe, copper-red like the Rocky Mountains, carrying the revolutionary Declaration of Independence rather than the Bible—was hardly “proper.” Yes, she managed to convey the rigor and puritanism of the sculptor’s contacts in Boston and New York, those upright churchgoers who reminded him of his strict mother. For them (and for Charlotte), Bartholdi gave his statue the posture, draped tunic, and thorny crown of the early Renaissance saints or Christs he had learned to paint and sculpt in Scheffer’s atelier.

But then Bartholdi added a ruder twist to the statue’s pious look. Rather than making her appearance graceful, like that of the pure and devout figure standing at the center of Billing’s Monument to the Forefathers, Bartholdi sculpted a frown on his statue’s face, emphasized her masculine features, and wrapped her in a red copper mantle (long since weathered to green), which was meant to evoke the “devilish” landscapes that seduced Bartholdi in the West. The statue is, indeed, Eastern and Western, feminine and masculine, pious and devilish, adorable and rough, motherly yet ready for war. She may be promising vengeance in the name of the downtrodden, or she could be a sentinel holding the line.

But who knows? Perhaps, jaws tense and face straight, she may just be chewing tobacco.

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Analysis of Statue Liberty History and Sense Essay

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The Statue of Liberty is undoubtedly a symbol of freedom in all senses. Yet, certain freedom is arguably more vivid than others. According to some historians, a political one seems to stand out, overshadowing universal symbolism. Politics both domestic and foreign were the major issue at the time of the statue’s construction, and freedom was and still is an important topic in U.S. history. Due to the great value of this monument to American history, it is paramount to review the aspects of its value pertaining to politics due to the major impact of the statue in this area and demonstrate its prevailing significance in this field as compared to other areas.

The historical pretext strongly indicates a dominant political motive for the construction of the statue. The Statue of Liberty represents a Roman goddess of liberty, dressed in robes and holding a torch in a protracted hand. She wears a crown with seven rays that symbolize the seven continents. The statue was the idea of a French lawyer and abolitionist Edouard de Laboulaye. He was famous for being an advocate for the rights of slaves and the oppressed black population. The monument was going to become a sign of victory of the Union, a liberal and progressive side in this matter because the proposition was voiced in 1865 when the Civil War ended. The end of the political conflict over slavery that was one of the main causes of the war between the North and the South was going to be marked with a statue symbolizing freedom. The official date of completion of the monument was, according to the Ellis Island Foundation Inc., originally planned to commemorate the Declaration of Independence, one of the founding documents of a political entity such as the United States of America. In addition to that, the statue was designed to honor the ties of France and the U.S. For the two countries that share common ideals and value freedom and are inspired by its revolutions, a Statue of Liberty became a demonstration of political closeness that persists. The choice of the place was also specific. The newly arriving immigrants were expected to be inspired by the greatness and of the United States and demonstrate its core values of building patriotism for the country from its mere borderlines.

Along with an overwhelming amount of historical data to vote for the prevalence of political connotations, among historians, there seems to have been no evident and fierce argument about it. However, the main symbols such as freedom, the rule of law, and leadership can indeed be found underlined in their works. According to Hunt, the Roman goddess with a torch in her hand symbolizes the end of the monarchic rule and its submission to the republican ideas, which mirrors the liberal ideas of France and assures support for them in America. In the works of Yellin, there is evidence that the bloom of the feminist movement was connected with the usage of the Statue of Liberty as a symbol of a strong woman in a political and social campaign for female rights. However, according to UNESCO’s historians, de Laboulaye envisioned the statue to be the symbol of friendship between all nations and progress. Although, they also notice that the statue reflects an American-French alliance.

Being historically infused with political meaning, the Statue of Liberty seems to have been successfully shaping the image of the U.S. from the day it was installed. It is evident from the fact that the basic freedoms and rights of a human being are still valued and protected by the constitution and the whole power of the law enforcement structures. Each citizen of the U.S. is free to exercise his or her right to free speech, religious practice, assembly, etc. However, the equality of all people has long been an issue in the country. The black race has struggled and still struggles for equal rights, fair employment, and other freedoms that should naturally be given, as the declaration of independence commemorated by the Statue insists that all people are born equal. It is not the flaw of the Statue, it is a flaw of the American people who fail to fulfill the ideas they imbued into it. The political course of the country has shifted from welcoming immigrants and treating them as builders and the foundation of the nation to unwanted elements of society, which also indicates the failure of the system and depreciation of the warm feelings towards the statue.

All in all, the Statue of liberty demonstrates its built-in affinity with politics through the very idea of its creation. All of the symbolism imbued with it serves to demonstrate the political strengths of the country, celebrate its union with France, and freedom from slavery. As such, a politics-infused monument the statue has done a marvelous job reminding the people that their country still upholds all that the statue represents, notwithstanding minor issues of inequality and unfairness. The knowledge of the true purpose of the Statue of Liberty and its depth of it seems to serve as a moral and political beacon for the present and future generations of presidents, administration officials, and citizens.

Bibliography

Ellis Island Foundation, Inc. “Statue History.” n.d. Web.

Jean Yellin F. “Caps and Chains: Hiram Powers’ Statue of ‘Liberty’.” American Quarterly, 38, no. 5 (1986):798-826. Web.

Lynn Hunt. “Hercules and the Radical Image in the French Revolution.” Representations , 2 (1983): 95-117. Web.

UNESCO. “Statue of Liberty.” n.d. Web.

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Essay on Statue Of Liberty

Students are often asked to write an essay on Statue Of Liberty in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Statue Of Liberty

Symbol of freedom and liberty.

The Statue of Liberty stands tall and proud in New York Harbor, a symbol of freedom and liberty for people all over the world. It was a gift from the people of France to the people of the United States and was dedicated on October 28, 1886. The statue is made of copper and is over 300 feet tall. It holds a torch in one hand and a tablet in the other. The tablet has the date July 4, 1776, inscribed on it, the day the United States declared its independence from Great Britain.

A Beacon of Light

The Statue of Liberty has been a beacon of light and hope for millions of immigrants who have come to the United States in search of a better life. It is a reminder of the values that the United States was founded on, such as freedom, equality, and opportunity. The statue has also been a symbol of peace and unity, especially during times of war and conflict.

A National Treasure

The Statue of Liberty is a national treasure and one of the most recognizable landmarks in the world. It is a symbol of the United States and its values, and it is a reminder of the importance of freedom and liberty. The statue is a popular tourist destination and is visited by millions of people each year.

250 Words Essay on Statue Of Liberty

The liberty enlightening the world.

The Statue of Liberty stands tall on Liberty Island in New York Harbor. It is a colossal neoclassical sculpture designed by French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi and built by Gustave Eiffel. The statue was a gift from the people of France to the people of the United States and commemorates the centennial of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It was dedicated on October 28, 1886.

A Symbol of Freedom

A gift from france.

The Statue of Liberty was a gift from the people of France to the people of the United States. The statue was constructed in France and then shipped to the United States in pieces. The statue was assembled on Liberty Island and dedicated on October 28, 1886.

A National Landmark

The Statue of Liberty is a national landmark and one of the most iconic monuments in the world. The statue is open to the public and visitors can climb to the top for a breathtaking view of New York Harbor. The Statue of Liberty is a symbol of hope and inspiration for people all over the world.

Conclusion: The Statue of Liberty is a symbol of freedom, democracy, and enlightenment. It is a gift from the people of France to the people of the United States and is a national landmark. The statue is a reminder of the importance of freedom and democracy and is an inspiration to people all over the world.

500 Words Essay on Statue Of Liberty

The statue of liberty: a symbol of freedom and hope.

The Statue of Liberty is a colossal neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in New York Harbor in New York City, in the United States. The copper statue, a gift from the people of France to the people of the United States, was designed by Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi and built by Gustave Eiffel. The statue was dedicated on October 28, 1886.

Lady Liberty: A Symbol of Freedom

The Statue of Liberty is a symbol of freedom and democracy. The statue’s torch represents enlightenment, while the tablet she holds reads “July 4, 1776”, the date of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The statue’s stance is also significant. She stands tall and proud, with her head held high as if to say, “We are free!”

The Statue’s Construction

The statue’s message of hope.

The Statue of Liberty has been a symbol of hope for people all over the world. It represents the idea that no matter where you come from or what your circumstances, you can come to America and start a new life. The statue has also been a symbol of freedom and democracy, and it has inspired people all over the world to fight for their rights.

The Statue’s Importance Today

The Statue of Liberty is still an important symbol today. It is a reminder of the ideals that America was founded on. The statue is also a symbol of hope for people all over the world. It represents the idea that anything is possible if you have the courage to dream it.

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The Statue Of Liberty (Essay Sample) 2023

The statue of liberty.

Anyone entering New York harbor will take note of a giant monument standing before them: the Statue of Liberty. The figure is a huge monument representing a woman holding a torch. It is associated with liberty and freedom from oppression and represents hope for millions of oppressed people across the world. This paper analyses the Statue of Liberty.

The Statue of Liberty is one of the most important cultural monuments in the United States, representing and emphasizing the American values. One of such values is freedom. Lady Liberty, as the statue is often referred, reminds the immigrants that their search for freedom and a better life has reached its destination. Democracy is the other American value that is clearly evident in the statue. At the time of the assembly of the statuette, the Americans had been under British rule for long. In a democratic country, people should be allowed to decide on who will lead or rule them, and their views must be respected. Other countries need to intervene when the people of one or more countries are suffering from oppression, just as the French intervened and helped Americans to expel the British and restore self-rule.

The statue has its origin in the 19th century, and a French citizen named Laboulaye is credited with its establishment. Standing at a height of over 110 feet equivalent to a 22-storey building, and weighing over 225 tons, the Statue of liberty has special significance in the United States.  One of the defining aspects of the figure is the broken shackles and chains that lie at the feet of the stature. Chains represent suffering and oppression. The torch represents hope and light in the midst of gloom and uncertainty. The torch is covered with various layers of gold, implying the value that freedom has to the progress of the world. With regard to the crown and face of the statuette, there are seven rays on the crown. There are seven continents in the world. The rays represent the seven seas and a bright future for the seven continents hence the entire world.

The statue has artistic, historical, and philosophical significance to not just the immigrants and oppressed people, but to the rest of the world. From an artistic perspective, it is skillfully and carefully designed, and its parts are well assembled and fitted with specific meanings for each part. Its historical significance is meant to remind the world never to retreat into colonization and suppression of freedom.

In the 19th century, the French helped the Americans when the latter was at war with Britain. The British were determined to continue colonizing America hence Britons represented oppression. The French supplied Americans with ships, arms, money, and other necessities during the struggle for independence. The decision by the French government to establish a statue for remembrance of the French-American collaboration places major artistic and historical relevance to the figure.

In the modern world, subjugation exists in various aspects. African-Americans have struggled and fought against racism for ages, while other categories of people such as those exploited by various political regimes across the world continue to suffer. The Statue of Liberty seeks to encourage such individuals and assure them that the future is bright and the chains of tyranny holding them down will soon be behind them.

In conclusion, the Statue of Liberty has special significance to not only the United States and its residents but the entire world. The values of freedom and democracy are to be upheld and protected. Lady Liberty is a symbol of unity and a prosperous world, and the well-being of the world is dependent on the people’s social, political, and economic stability.

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The unveiling of the Statue of Liberty in 1886 forever changed the New York skyline. Designed by Frederic Bartholdi, the statue was a gift from France – although Americans raised the funds for the pedestal she stands on. Only dignitaries were invited to attend the statue’s official dedication ceremony, but an estimated one million people took part in a parade and festivities around New York to mark the occasion. Read more about it!

The information in this guide focuses on primary source materials found in the digitized historic newspapers from the digital collection Chronicling America .

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The statue of liberty, defining what it means to be an american.

In this lesson, students will consider how the landmark, the Statue of Liberty, does or does not represent people's feeling about being an American.  The lesson involves oral history and writing as learning techniques.

Type of Landmark

Learning objectives.

• Students will be able to understand the significance of landmarks as a means to identify important characteristics of our culture by identify and exploring examples of iconic landmarks.
• Students will be able to connect the historic and cultural importance of the Statue of Liberty and a primary source reading with our nation’s foundational principles and our current construct of what it means to be an American by connecting the parts of the Statue of Liberty story with student’s personal narratives.
• Multiple images of the Statue of Liberty
• Emma Lazarus Poem, "The New Colossus."
• What is a landmark worksheet.
• Statute of Libery worksheet
• New Colossus worksheet
• Oral history interview worksheet
• Essay Prompt
• Notes students have taken over the course of the Lesson.

Suggested Instructional Procedures

1) Students will brainstorm as partners and complete a worksheet.

2) Students view an image of the State of Liberty and work with their partners to answer this worksheet (This is the landmark discovery worksheet to be used for evaluation).

3) Students and teacher will review the answers in a guided notes presentation and students will complete notes in the boxes.

1) Students will read the primary source, “The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus , which is inscribed on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty .

2) After viewing this image students will consider the questions on this worksheet   (This is the "New Colossus" worksheet to be used for evaluation).

1) Students will complete  two interviews  of individuals from difference age groups asking the questions on, and using, this worksheet (provide students with two copies of the worksheet.) Added instructions include: your interview subjects will have different life experiences, so their reflections will offer unique perspectives. 

A few guidelines: It is okay to ask relatives and ideally it would be helpful to talk to people with a story.  For example, you may consider choosing senior citizens, immigrants, and people with a story different than your own. 

2) Students will  write a reflection  based on their discovery of landmarks, interviews and our foundational principles. This should be a typed, formal paragraph addressing the following question.

What does being an American mean to me? (Essay Prompt here)

Landmark: A distinguishing feature in a landscape.

Statue : A three dimensional work of art made of stone or metal, typically depicting an animal or a person.

Liberty:  T he state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one's way of life, behavior, or political views

Emma Lazarus: An American poet, born in 1849 who lived in New York City. She is best known for her poem "The New Colossus," which she wrote for and was sold in a charity auction to support the construction of the pedestal for the Statue of Liberty. The poem was placed in the pedestal in 1903.

End of Lesson Assessment

Students will be assessed formatively on class discussions, note taking and the Landmark Brainstorm Worksheet.

Students will be assessed in a summative manner by quality completion of:

• Statue of Liberty Landmark Discovery Worksheet
• Statue of Liberty Landmark Discovery “The New Colossus” Worksheet
• Worksheet Interview Response Worksheet
• Formal Written Reflection

Rubric provided here.

Grade Level

Duration of lesson, standards/eligible content.

Lisa Friedman, Middle School Teacher, New Jersey.

Funders/Sponsors

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Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this website or during the institutes, do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Additional funding is being provided by Wells Fargo through HEAD for the Future, its partnership with HSP, and by Independence National Historical Park.

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