Humanities: Statue of Liberty. The Origin and Implications Thereof.

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The Lady of Liberty

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!" (Lazarus, 1883)

When you think of America, what do you think of as its most globally acknowledged symbol? The Statue of Liberty, or originally known as Liberty Enlightening the World, is known throughout the world as a beacon of freedom and a symbol of our country. The story of Lady Liberty is stoked in history and some controversy.

The Statue of Liberty was commission to be done by sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, in 1876, in order to memorialize the one hundredth year of the Declaration of Independence. Alexandre Gustave Eiffel, the engineer who designed the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France, assisted Bartholdi with the iron framework for the statue.

The statue was made of an iron structure and copper panels molded to the likeness of the model used by Bartholdi. Bartholdi finished the statue in 1884, in Paris, and then was dismantled into 350 pieces, to be shipped in 214 crates, on the French frigate "Irere" to America. The statue was put together twice, once in France and again in its final destination in America. The pedestal was to be built by America and was hard to finance for the government.

The pedestal site was proposed by General Sherman, who was incremental in ending the Civil War. He chose Bedloe's Island, which was later named Liberty Island. The statue was placed on a granite pedestal, in the center of Ft. Wood, which consequently was built for the War of 1812. The Light House Board was responsible for the statue until 1901, whereby it...