The Statue of Liberty

AMERICAN STUDIES

THE STATUE OF LIBERTY

Statue of Liberty

When someone is asked to pick a symbol for the freedom of America, probably one of the most common responses will be "The Statue of Liberty". Although almost every American citizen knows this monument, very little understand where it came from and why it was made. When asked who invented it, what year it was made, for what purpose, most people will stare at you and shrug their shoulders. Today Americans refer to the statue as "Lady Liberty" or the "Statue of Liberty". The statue's birth name was given by Frederick Auguste Bartholdi and is "La liberte e'clairant le monde" or "Liberty Enlightening the World". The statue symbolizes the values of Americans such as freedom from oppression, democracy, and international friendship. The Statue of Liberty is given to the United States to stand for a symbol of the friendship between the French and American people in 1865. On October 28, 1886, President Grover Cleveland allowed the statue to be seen by thousands of people. The observers would gather around the torch of the statue in the 1880s for a breathtaking sight of the harbor. The statue was two hundred and fifty-one feet above water and fifty feet taller than the "Colossus of Rhodes" which was two hundred and one inches tall. The Statue of Liberty was a "landmark of New York" just like the Eiffel Tower of Paris. On June 19, 1885, France gave the United States a gift of the Statue of Liberty. The historian E'douard de Laboulaye had an idea to give the United States a "physical symbol to celebrate the two nations during the American Revolution. The statue intended to be all from the French people. While adults and children were migrating to the U.S., they looked at the statue. Immigrants came into American cities and the children crossed the ocean. The children received their first view of the Statue of Liberty. The sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, born in Alsace, France, asked to build the statue....