Meaning of the Statue of Liberty
- The Statue of Liberty was designed by Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of the American Declaration of Independence. It was first proposed as a gift from France to the United States by Edouard-Rene Lefebvre de Laboulaye in 1865. France agreed to build the statue, ship it to New York and install it. The United States agreed to build and finance the pedestal, which was designed by Richard Morris Hunt.
When the project had to be delayed because of insufficient funds, Joseph Pulitzer used his newspaper to galvonize donors to the new French-American Union which had been formed to finance the statue. The statue arrived on October 28, 1876, ten years and three months later than expected. - The most obvious meaning of the Statue of Liberty is that it stands for freedom. In fact, the original title of the statue is "Liberty Enlightening the World." Liberty, since ancient times, has been recognized as a goddess. In Rome, her name was Libertas, and her portrait appeared on the ancient denarius coins used throughout the Roman Empire. In Greece, the same goddess was called Minerva. When Bartholdi created the statue as a woman, he was following a long classical tradition. President Grover Cleveland echoed the idea in his acceptance speech when he said, "We will not forget that Liberty has here made her home; nor shall her chosen altar be neglected."
- Bartholdi incorporated other symbols that add to the meaning of the Statue of Liberty in his design. There are 25 windows in the crown of the statue. They stand for the various gems that are found on earth as well as for a map of the stars in the heavens. The crown also has seven rays. These represent the seven seas and the continents of the earth. He made sure that the statue included a reference to Independence Day. The tablet that Liberty carries in her hand has the date, July 4, 1776 carved in Roman numerals.
- The Americans adopted the Statue of Liberty as a national symbol in many ways, including putting it on the World War I Liberty Bond notes. Earlier, Emma Lazarus wrote the poem, "The New Colossus," in which she called the Statue of Liberty the "Mother of Exiles." (In fact Bartholdi modeled the face of the statue after his own mother.) This poem was inscribed in bronze in 1903 and can be seen at the Statue Museum.
- The Statue of Liberty is such a national treasure that it has been the focus of attacks by terrorists. On July 30, 1916, the Black Tom Explosion damaged the Statue of Liberty so heavily the torch was closed to tourists. In 1984, it was declared to be a World Heritage Site by the United Nations. After the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, the statue was closed to tourists until August 3, 2004. When the statue was reopened, a flood of visitors began once again to climb the stairs to the top of the largest statue built since ancient times.
