This 302-foot tall copper statue,
formally called "Liberty Enlight-
ening the World," stands on
Liberty Island in the Upper Bay
of New York Harbor. The statue,
which represents a woman raising
her torch to proclaim liberty, was
a gift from the people of France to
the people of the United States, in
honor of the U.S. centennial in
1876.
French historian Edouard de
Laboulaye first proposed the gift,
and the French people raised
money so that, in 1875, sculptor
Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi's team
could began work on the colossal
statue. The statue is constructed
of hand-hammered copper sheets
assembled over a framework of
steel supports, designed by
Eugene Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc
and Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel.
The completed statue, weighing
nearly 225 tons, was disassembled
and shipped to New York for
reassembly on a pedestal designed
by American architect Richard
Morris Hunt. The Emma Lazarus
sonnet, "The New Colossus," with
its famous line "give me your
tired, your poor, your huddled
masses..." is inscribed in the
pedestal. The Statue of Liberty
was dedicated by President
Cleveland on October 28, 1886.
