VisitStatueofLiberty.com Contents 1 Statue of Liberty 1 1.1 Design and construction process ................................... 1 1.1.1 Origin ............................................ 1 1.1.2 Design, style, and symbolism ................................. 2 1.1.3 Announcement and early work ................................ 4 1.1.4 Construction in France .................................... 5 1.1.5 Dedication .......................................... 8 1.2 After dedication ............................................ 9 1.2.1 Lighthouse Board and War Department (1886–1933) .................... 9 1.2.2 Early National Park Service years (1933–1982) ....................... 10 1.2.3 Renovation and rededication (1982–2000) .......................... 11 1.2.4 Closures and reopenings (2001–present) ........................... 12 1.3 Access and attributes ......................................... 13 1.3.1 Location and tourism ..................................... 13 1.3.2 Inscriptions, plaques, and dedications ............................ 14 1.4 UNESCO World Heritage Site .................................... 14 1.4.1 Physical characteristics .................................... 14 1.5 Depictions ............................................... 14 1.6 See also ................................................ 16 1.7 References .............................................. 16 1.8 External links ............................................. 20 2 Statue of Liberty National Monument 21 2.1 History ................................................. 21 2.2 Significance .............................................. 21 2.3 Location and access .......................................... 21 2.3.1 Jurisdiction .......................................... 22 2.4 Related sites .............................................. 22 2.5 See also ................................................ 22 2.6 References ............................................... 22 2.6.1 Notes ............................................. 22 2.6.2 Further reading ........................................ 23 2.7 External links ............................................. 24 i ii CONTENTS 3 Liberty Island 25 3.1 Geography and access ......................................... 25 3.2 History ................................................. 25 3.2.1 Great Oyster Island ...................................... 25 3.2.2 Bedloe’s Island ........................................ 25 3.2.3 Fort Wood .......................................... 26 3.2.4 Statue of Liberty ....................................... 26 3.2.5 Museum ............................................ 27 3.3 Jurisdictional disputes ......................................... 27 3.3.1 State dispute ......................................... 27 3.3.2 Federal ownership ....................................... 28 3.4 See also ................................................ 28 3.5 References .............................................. 28 3.6 External links ............................................. 29 4 Ellis Island 30 4.1 Geography and access ......................................... 30 4.2 Early history .............................................. 30 4.3 Immigrant inspection station ...................................... 31 4.3.1 Primary inspection ...................................... 32 4.3.2 Medical inspections ..................................... 33 4.3.3 Eugenic influence ....................................... 34 4.3.4 Detention and deportation station ............................... 34 4.3.5 Staff ............................................. 35 4.3.6 Records ............................................ 36 4.3.7 Notable immigrants ..................................... 36 4.4 Immigration museum ......................................... 36 4.4.1 South side of the island .................................... 37 4.5 State sovereignty dispute ....................................... 38 4.6 Emergency services .......................................... 39 4.7 In popular culture ........................................... 39 4.8 See also ................................................ 40 4.9 References ............................................... 40 4.9.1 Notes ............................................. 40 4.9.2 Sources ............................................ 42 4.10 Further reading ............................................ 43 4.11 External links ............................................. 43 4.12 Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses .......................... 44 4.12.1 Text .............................................. 44 4.12.2 Images ............................................ 47 4.12.3 Content license ........................................ 51 Chapter 1 Statue of Liberty For other uses, see Statue of Liberty (disambiguation). presided over by President Grover Cleveland. The statue was administered by the United States Light- The Statue of Liberty (Liberty Enlightening the World; house Board until 1901 and then by the Department of French: La Liberté éclairant le monde) is a colossal War; since 1933 it has been maintained by the National neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in New York Park Service. Public access to the balcony surrounding Harbor in New York City, in the United States. The cop- the torch has been barred for safety reasons since 1916. per statue, a gift from the people of France to the peo- ple of the United States, was designed by French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi and built by Gustave Eiffel. 1.1 Design and construction pro- The statue was dedicated on October 28, 1886. cess The Statue of Liberty is a robed female figure represent- ing Libertas, the Roman goddess. She holds a torch above her head, and in her left arm carries a tabula ansata in- 1.1.1 Origin scribed “July 4, 1776”, the date of the U.S. Declaration of Independence. A broken chain lies at her feet. The statue According to the National Park Service, the idea for the became an icon of freedom and of the United States, Statue of Liberty was first proposed by Édouard René de and was a welcoming sight to immigrants arriving from Laboulaye the president of the French Anti-Slavery Soci- abroad. ety and a prominent and important political thinker of his Bartholdi was inspired by French law professor and politi- time. The project is traced to a mid-1865 conversation cian Édouard René de Laboulaye, who is said to have between Édouard René de Laboulaye, a staunch aboli- commented in 1865 that any monument raised to U.S. tionist and Frédéric Bartholdi, a sculptor. In after-dinner independence would properly be a joint project of the conversation at his home near Versailles, Laboulaye, an French and U.S. peoples. Due to the post-war instabil- ardent supporter of the Union in the American Civil War, ity in France, work on the statue did not commence until is supposed to have said: “If a monument should rise in the early 1870s. In 1875, Laboulaye proposed that the the United States, as a memorial to their independence, I should think it only natural if it were built by united French finance the statue and the U.S. would provide the [7] site and build the pedestal. Bartholdi completed the head effort—a common work of both our nations.” The Na- and the torch-bearing arm before the statue was fully de- tional Park Service, in a 2000 report, however, deemed this a legend traced to an 1885 fundraising pamphlet, and signed, and these pieces were exhibited for publicity at [8] international expositions. that the statue was most likely conceived in 1870. In an- other essay on their website, the Park Service suggested The torch-bearing arm was displayed at the Centennial that Laboulaye was minded to honor the Union victory Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876, and in Madison and its consequences, “With the abolition of slavery and Square Park in Manhattan from 1876 to 1882. Fundrais- the Union’s victory in the Civil War in 1865, Laboulaye’s ing proved difficult, especially for the Americans, and by wishes of freedom and democracy were turning into a re- 1885 work on the pedestal was threatened due to lack of ality in the United States. In order to honor these achieve- funds. Publisher Joseph Pulitzer of the New York World ments, Laboulaye proposed that a gift be built for the started a drive for donations to complete the project that United States on behalf of France. Laboulaye hoped attracted more than 120,000 contributors, most of whom that by calling attention to the recent achievements of gave less than a dollar. The statue was constructed in the United States, the French people would be inspired France, shipped overseas in crates, and assembled on to call for their own democracy in the face of a repressive the completed pedestal on what was then called Bed- monarchy.”[9] loe’s Island. The statue’s completion was marked by New York’s first ticker-tape parade and a dedication ceremony According to sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, who later recounted the story, Laboulaye’s comment was not 1 2 CHAPTER 1. STATUE OF LIBERTY loe’s Island (now named Liberty Island) as a site for the statue, struck by the fact that vessels arriving in New York had to sail past it. He was delighted to learn that the is- land was owned by the United States government—it had been ceded by the New York State Legislature in 1800 for harbor defense. It was thus, as he put it in a letter to Laboulaye: “land common to all the states.”[14] As well as meeting many influential New Yorkers, Bartholdi vis- ited President Ulysses S. Grant, who assured him