A story

Liberty, raised twice

Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi's Liberty Enlightening the World was assembled in Paris, taken apart, and built again on Bedloe's Island for an unveiling on October 28, 1886. The shop has Fernique's Paris view, a newspaper cut of the New York reconstruction, and Highsmith's later close photograph.

Statue of Liberty, Close. Carol M. Highsmith's close photograph of Bartholdi's Statue of Liberty. The Library dates the transparency between 1980 and 2006. — Statue of Liberty, Close

Proposed in 1865, finished in Paris

The National Park Service says that in 1865 the French political thinker and anti-slavery activist Édouard de Laboulaye proposed a statue for the United States, to honor the centennial of independence and the friendship with France. Bartholdi supported the idea and in 1870 began designing Liberty Enlightening the World. On a trip in 1871 he chose Bedloe's Island because every ship entering the harbor could see it. The Park Service's page on Laboulaye adds that he announced the project in September 1875, with the Franco-American Union to raise the money: France would pay for the statue, and the United States for the pedestal. He tied the gift to the Union victory and to the Thirteenth Amendment.

Construction in France began in 1876. The arm and torch were shown at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition that year. The head and shoulders went to the Paris Universal Exposition in 1878. The whole figure was completed and assembled in Paris between 1881 and 1884. It was presented to Levi P. Morton, the United States minister to France, on July 4, 1884, then disassembled and shipped on the French navy ship Isère. It reached New York Harbor on June 17, 1885. The pedestal was not ready. Reassembly on the island waited until 1886. Albert Fernique's photograph, the print titled as the Paris assembly, is the shop's record of that first raising: the copper figure up in a courtyard in 1883, before it was taken down for the crossing. The catalog dates the dedication that followed to October 28, 1886.

Bedloe's Island, then the face

Once the pedestal was done, the Park Service says, the crew set Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel's iron frame first and raised the rest without scaffolding, hoisting the pieces with steam cranes. The copper skin had been shaped by repoussé, hammered in thin sheets. Fort Wood, the star-shaped fort already on the island, was kept and the pedestal built inside its walls. Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper for October 9, 1886, ran a wood engraving of that reconstruction. Library of Congress item 99614141 is that print, volume 63, number 1620, pages 120–121. No known restrictions on publication. The unveiling came on October 28, 1886, in wet and foggy weather. The Park Service says about a million New Yorkers turned out, and that Bartholdi released the French flag veiling the face.

The close photograph is Carol M. Highsmith's, Library of Congress item 2011632115, a color transparency dated between 1980 and 2006, reproduction LC-DIG-highsm-13921. The Library's note repeats the dedication of October 28, 1886, adds that the statue was designated a National Monument in 1924, and says it was restored for the centennial on July 4, 1986. No known restrictions on publication. The Park Service's statistics give the copper skin as 3/32 of an inch thick, about two pennies together, and 176,000 pounds. The iron framework is 440,000 pounds. From the ground to the tip of the torch is 305 feet 1 inch. The figure faces southeast, lined up with Fort Wood so that a ship entering the harbor meets the face. The tablet reads JULY IV MDCCLXXVI. The crown has seven rays and 25 windows. Chains and a broken shackle lie at the feet and cannot be seen from the ground. The torch now in the hand was installed in 1986, copper covered in 24-karat gold leaf, and the original torch was later moved into the museum. The face in Highsmith's frame is that restored head, cropped so the torch and the crown fill the sheet.