Free
Hundreds of people worked to build the Statue of Liberty, which took 21 years to complete.
Here are some of the most important.
Charlotte Bartholdi ▶
Charlotte Bartholdi’s son designed the statue to look like his mother—a dignified older woman.
◀ Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi
Bartholdi showed artistic talent from a young age. He studied architecture, drawing, and painting with the best teachers. So it was no surprise when he was commissioned to build a monument to celebrate American liberty. Bartholdi had previously created several large sculptures. One of them was a statue of Marquis de Lafayette, a wealthy Frenchman who fought on the side of the colonists during the American Revolution. It stands today in New York City. Bartholdi died in 1904 of tuberculosis.
Alexandre Gustave Eiffel ▶
Eiffel did not consider the Statue of Liberty’s framework among his finest accomplishments. However, others considered it a work of genius. The reason may have been because it was invisible to those looking at the statue, unlike the elegant and serviceable iron latticework on his bridge designs. In 1885, he was commissioned to build what became his most acclaimed work, the now famous Eiffel Tower. It was the centerpiece for the Paris World’s Fair of 1889. The metal structure held the record as the world’s tallest building until 1931, when the Empire State Building was built.
Richard Morris Hunt ▶
Hunt was the first American to study architecture at the esteemed École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He was known for building mansions for the rich and famous of New York. For his work designing Liberty’s pedestal, he was paid $1,000, which he gave to the statue’s building fund.
◀ Édouard René Laboulaye
Laboulaye, who conceived the idea of presenting the United States with a gift when it celebrated its 100th birthday of independence, was a historian, professor, and politician. He hired Bartholdi to design the statue and was president of the Franco-American Union. As a professor, he was the very first person to teach a course on the U.S. Constitution at a French college. Sadly, he died three years before the unveiling of the Statue of Liberty.
◀ William Maxwell Evarts
Evarts was chairman of the American Committee of the Franco-American Union. It was set up to raise money for the pedestal. Along with his French counterpart at the Franco-American Union, Evarts formally presented the Statue of Liberty to the American public at Bedloe’s Island on October 28, 1886.
Emma Lazarus ▶
Lazarus was a New Yorker of Portuguese-Jewish descent. She was an outspoken activist for the fair treatment of Jewish immigrants in the United States. Four years after composing “The New Colossus” for the Pedestal Art Loan Exhibit, she died of cancer, in 1887. She was 38 years old. When the poem was written, it was not widely known. However, three years later, when other poems about Liberty were getting recognition, hers rose to the top. Still, it wasn’t until Lazarus’s friend Georgina Schuyler came across the poem that it was brought to the public’s notice and mounted inside the pedestal, in 1903.
◀ Joseph Pulitzer
Pulitzer, an immigrant from Hungary, fought for the Union army during the Civil War. In 1878, he bought two newspapers, the Saint Louis Post and the Dispatch. In 1883, he bought the New York World newspaper. Pulitzer commissioned Bartholdi to build a statue, Washington and Lafayette, which was Pulitzer’s gift to France—a token of thanks for the Statue of Liberty.
