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The Statue of Liberty

I wrote this original post on 2/24/2017.
This post was updated 6/20/2018.

This post was updated 3/17/2023.

She is standing tall on the horizon. I can envision a boat full of immigrants tired of days at sea coming outside and seeing Lady Liberty; in sight, she is promising them a new life.
Decades might have passed, but I still remember when my plane coming into JFK flew by the NYC harbor. Looking down, I saw Lady Liberty standing tall on Liberty Island. My heart skipped a beat as our family arrived at our new home, America.
My heart was so young and pure, full of dreams, full of Hope, feeling free of worries as we were HOME and Lady Liberty’s promises of Hope.

Beautiful “Lady Liberty,” as my then two-year-old called her as she saw her for the first time, standing beautifully on the horizon, always making me smile.
I do not visit Ellis Island and Liberty Island often, even though I am close.
I grew up in New Jersey and loved watching The Statue of Liberty from the shores of New York and Jersey City.

A few summers ago, we took our kids, James, 6, and Sophia, 2, to visit the Statue of Liberty on a hot, humid New York Day.
It was an incredibly hot afternoon spent with those we loved

The Statue of Liberty stood tall and mesmerized my children that day.

It had been eight months since our trip, and the kids were still talking about going on the boat to visit “Lady Liberty.” 

Since they had such a great time, I went to our local library and picked up a few books to read with the children.

What was super interesting is that along the way, I learned some incredible new facts about our national treasure- The Statue of Liberty.

 

10 Cool Facts about the Statue of Liberty-                DID YOU KNOW?

• 1. Imagining an idea that came to life.

• Did you know that “Liberty Enlightening the World” was an idea of French sculptor Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi an idea conceived in 1865 which was completed in 1886?  

• 2. Symbol of America.

• The Statue of Liberty almost instantly became the symbol of the best America had to offer: liberty, freedom, and opportunity. The statue was inaugurated on October 1886, however, did not become a national monument until thirty-eight years later in 1924.

• 3. Only two women were invited for Lady Liberty’s Inauguration.

• Only two women were invited for the inaugural ceremony and they were both French. One was the wife of Frederic Auguste Bartholdi- Ms.Jeanne-Emilie Bartholdi and Tototte de Lesseps the daughter of Ferdinand-Marie Lesseps the builder of the Suez Canal. The women from the New York Woman Suffragette Association were enraged so much so that they chartered a boat and sailed their protest near Bedloe’s Island ceremonies were an almost all-male crowd stood. These women were so loud that Mr. William M. Evarts the principal speaker stopped talking long enough to where an aide believe he was done with his speech in which lead to the signal to Bartholdi that he was finished and he could unveil Miss Liberty. Bartholdi unveiled the statue about an hour too soon!

• 4. It was not meant to be a present to America.

• The original idea of Bartholdi was for the entrance of the Canal of Suez in Egypt, however, Egypt did not like his idea and denied his project. Bartholdi thought maybe the old world would not like his idea but the new world would so he started to focus on the statue of America. During this time France and Prussia were at war and the town of Colmar which was Bartholdi’s town was taken by Prussia. Bartholdi was upset because of that situation in his mind Colmar had to be liberated and returned to France one day. Bartholdi’s patriotism, and his noble ideas of liberty, and his dream of monumental sculpture all came together into one single idea, the Statue of Liberty.

• 5. The engineer who worked on our statue also created a unique sculpture in Paris, guess which?

• The designing of the armature for the Statue of Liberty was designed by Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel a French structural engineer that a few short years later designed his own unique piece of sculpture the Eiffel Tower.

• 6. There was a deal that France would give us the statue and the US would pay for the pedestal.

• It was the deal that France would present America with the statue and America would provide a pedestal for the statue. The problem was that the people of the United States through Congress told the government that they wanted the Statue of Liberty designed by Bartholdi. The Statue would stand on Bedloe’s island and Bartholdi wanted the island to be called Liberty Island.

• 7. They changed the island’s name

• Bedloe’s Island became “Liberty Island” in 1956 when the statue became a national monument.

• 8. The grassroots campaign provided $$$ to build the pedestal for the statue.

• Since donations for the pedestal did not come in. Immigrant Joseph Pulitzer who was the publisher of the St. Louis Post- Dispatch and the New York World began a grassroots campaign to raise money for the pedestal.

• 9. It took 121,000 people to donate $102,006.39 to help build a pedestal for our beloved statue.

• Money from a fundraising campaign was the money that put the Statue of Liberty on its pedestal this fundraised collected pennies, nickels, and dimes from working-class men, women, and schoolchildren. Pulitzer’s newspaper raises $102,006.39 from 121,000 people for the Pedestal.

• 10. A poem written in 1883 was engraved in America’s history forever.

• Emma Lazarus a poet wrote a poem in 1883 to be auctioned to raise money for Liberty’s pedestal and she wrote:
  “Give me your tired, your poor,
  Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
  The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
  Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me:
  I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

This poem “The New Colossus” was inscribed in bronze and mounted inside the pedestal on May 6, 1903.

President Cleveland during the ceremony to present The Statue of Liberty said:
“We will not forget that Liberty has made her home here”.

• Frederic Auguste Bartholdi died in 1904.

I know this was a long post but these facts were too cool not to share.

 

These facts were paraphrased from these two amazing books:

-The Statue of Liberty By: Leonard Everett Fisher. He is an amazing author and he describes the events as a story which I could not put the book down until I was done.

-Lady Liberty Biography. By: Doreen Rapp Aport and Matt Tavares. This is an amazing book which tells the story iof the Statue of Liberty in an amazing poetic way. Sharing a little bit about the people who helped make the Statue of Liberty a reality. The drawings by Matt Tavares are beautiful.

Tips for parents traveling with small kids:

I have done the trip with an umbrella  stroller

and also with  Tula.
I preferred the trip with the Tula since I had the little one closer and wasn’t bumping into all the tourists!
I love my Tula!

Well, my friends, I hope you have the chance to visit Ellis Island and Liberty Island in the future. The view is spectacular and the history is amazing.

To stand next to the symbol of Liberty, Freedom, and Opportunity and her 151’1” from base to torch is such an amazing feeling that you must experience for yourself in order to truly understand.

 

Much love to all of you,

Raquel

 

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