17th June: The Statue of Liberty

1885 The Statue of Liberty arrived in New York. It arrived, from France, in a ship called Isère. It was in pieces in crates when it arrived and the Americans would need to assemble it.

1. Liberty had to wait a while for the pedestal to put her on - it wasn't finished until April 1886. The agreement between the USA and France had been that the French would supply the statue and the US would pay for the pedestal. Joseph Pulitzer, publisher of the New York World, a New York newspaper, had organised a fundraising drive to raise $100,000. $102,000 was eventually raised from 120,000 donors. 80% of the total was received in sums of less than one dollar.
2. The original concept was thought to have arisen out of an after-dinner conversation between Édouard René de Laboulaye, a staunch abolitionist, and Frédéric Bartholdi, a sculptor, in 1865. Laboulaye, an ardent supporter of the Union in the American Civil War, is supposed to have said: "If a monument should rise in the United States, as a memorial to their independence, I should think it only natural if it were built by united effort—a common work of both our nations." Although it has been suggested that this story was written for a fundraising leaflet, Bartholdi himself reported that Laboulaye did speak the words, but it was an idea, not a proposal, however, it inspired Bartholdi to give the suggestion more thought.
3. The island the statue stands on is called Liberty Island, but before the statue was put there it was called Bedloe's Island. The name was changed in 1956. Bartholdi himself noticed the island when he sailed into New York and thought it would be a good location, especially when he found out that the island was owned by the United States government and therefore was "land common to all the states." President Rutherford B. Hayes, charged with choosing the final location, agreed, and the statue was placed inside Fort Wood, a disused army base on the Island.
4. The height of the Statue of Liberty is 151 feet 1 inch (46 meters). Her hand is 16 ft 5 in (5 m) high; her eye is 2 ft 6 in (0.76 m) wide; her waist measures 35 ft (10.67 m) and her shoe size would be 879. She weighs 450,000 pounds or 204.1 tonnes. Her crown has 25 windows and seven spikes which represent the seven continents and seven oceans of the world.
5. Most people know Liberty holds a torch in one hand and a tablet (inscribed with the date of the US declaration of independence) but less obvious is the fact that she is standing on a broken chain. Early designs had her holding the chain in her hand but it was decided this would be too divisive so soon after the Civil War.
6. There are 354 stairs to reach the statue’s crown. It was originally possible to climb up to the torch, but after a World War I bomb exploded nearby in 1916, causing minor damage to the statue, the torch was closed for safety reasons and never reopened. During World War II, the statue remained open to visitors, but it was not illuminated at night due to wartime blackouts. It was lit briefly on December 31, 1943, and on D-Day, June 6, 1944, when its lights flashed "dot-dot-dot-dash", the Morse code for V, for victory.
7. The Statue of Liberty was originally intended to be a Lighthouse. However, the light from the torch proved much too faint and the newspapers at the time commented that it was "more like a glow-worm than a beacon." Bartholdi suggested numerous ways to improve the situation, but none of them worked, so in 1901, President Theodore Roosevelt ordered the statue's transfer to the War Department, as it had proved useless as a lighthouse.
8. The dedication ceremony was not without glitches. There were several long speeches made by various dignitaries. The French flag which covered the face was supposed to be lowered at the end of a speech by Senator William M. Evarts. However, Evarts paused just a little too long in the middle of his speech; Bartholdi thought he had finished and lowered the flag too soon, and the rest of Evarts' speech was drowned out by the cheers of the crowd. Bartholdi was invited to make a speech, but refused. The only women allowed on the Island during the ceremony were Bartholdi's wife and de Lesseps's granddaughter; officials stated that they feared women might be injured in the crush of people. This offended the local suffragettes, so they chartered a boat to get as close to the island as they could so their leaders could make their own speeches, applauding the embodiment of Liberty as a woman and advocating women's right to vote. There was to be a Firework display as well, but the weather was too bad so it was postponed until the following month.
9. The statue is made from Copper, thought to have come from a mine in Visnes, Norway, with an Iron framework underneath. The latter was built by Gustave Eiffel, famous for building a certain tower in Paris. When first erected, it was the tallest iron structure ever built. The statue itself was a dull copper colour at first, but oxidation of the copper gradually turned it the green colour we see today. At first, Congress wanted to paint it to restore the original colour; but the proposal met with a public outcry. Eventually it was decided that the green colour not only "softened the outlines of the Statue and made it beautiful," but also protected the statue from further damage.
10. In high winds, the statue can sway by up to 3 inches, while the torch can move 5 inches. She also gets struck by Lightning about 600 times a year.