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| Sunday, 19 September 2004 |
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Junior Observer |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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The spirit of Liberty
The story behind this statue - the bronze lady with the torch is fascinating. This daunting statue, (the robed figure alone is 151 feet high without the base) is a gift to the United States from the French. Edouard - Rene Lefebvre de Laboulaye, a great French Americanist, thought of dedicating the statue to the cause of liberty in 1865, the same year in which Abraham Lincoln laid down his life for the cause of liberty. Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, a 31 year old sculptor whose ambition was to build the biggest statue in the world and Alexandre Gustave Eiffel, an engineer whose genius had already resulted in the building of the Eiffel Tower, were to be involved in the construction of this time-defying monument. The Statue of Liberty was completed and presented to the United States Ambassador in Paris in 1884. It was dismantled and shipped to America on July 4, in 214 crates. Bartholde travelled to the States in 1876 to select the spot for the statue and his choice was Bedloe Island which was named Liberty Island 80 years later in 1956. The statue began to rise in May 1886 taking around six months to mount the statue to the base. The 89 foot pedestal was designed by Richard Morris Hunt. The unveiling day was October 28, 1886 and more than a million people lined New York's bunting to witness this great event. The poem 'The New Colossus' was written by Emma Lazarus to help raise funds for the construction of the pedestal. A part of it reads as follows: 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-toste, to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door. On October 15, 1924, President Calvin Coolidge declared the Statue of Liberty a national monument. |
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Towering 305 feet above the Liberty Island off the channel of New York
harbour, the statue of Liberty has enthralled all who visit or seek refuge
in the United States of America (USA). It is USA's symbolic landmark.
