Martin Van Buren Chapter Daughters of the American Revolution
Friday, November 18, 2011
November 2011 Meeting
Lady Liberty
Lady Liberty by Margaret Springer for the Martin Van Buren Chapter Daughters of the American Revolution
“The Most Celebrated Woman in the World”. She’s 151 feet tall…one lock of her hair can fill a room…Who is this colossal lady? The Statue of Liberty. A French sculptor designed the grand lady, divided the statue into 300 parts, shipped it in 214 crates to America, where it was reconstructed in New York Harbor. Today this magnificent statue is a symbol of world-wide freedom and brotherhood. (from the Cornerstones of Freedom, The Story of the Statue of Liberty by Natalie Miller.)
The Statue of Liberty stands a total of 305 feet, 1 inch, from the pedestal to the tip of her torch. She weighs 450,000 pounds. The right arm’s length is 42 feet. Twelve people can stand in her torch. There are 354 steps from the base to the crown. The width of the mouth is 3 feet. The massive, solid looking figure is actually made of a thin layer of pounded copper—a kind of metal skin. Inside the hollow statue stands a vast iron and steel frame-work, a skeleton, to hold up the metal skin. The most impressive thing about the statue is not the way it was built, but how powerfully it conveys the idea of freedom to people all over the world.
The artist who designed the statue, Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, named it “Liberty Enlightening the World.” He designed the statue in 1875 as a monument to American independence. At the statue’s feet he placed a broken chain to show that the United States had broken free from Great Britain’s rule. In her left arm, Liberty carries a tablet with the date of the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776, written on it in Roman Numerals.
Bartholdi hoped the success of this nation would be an example for the rest of the world. He therefore gave Liberty a burning torch in her right hand and a crown with seven rays, to represent the seven seas to the seven continents and light up the world.
Bartholdi was a Frenchman who envisioned the statue as a monument to America’s independence and the friendship between France and the United States. As you remember, during the Revolutionary War the two nations cherished the same ideals and France helped the struggling Americans to win their independence. Laboulaye’s idea was for the two nations to build a monument by united efforts to glorify the concept of human liberty. He spent months traveling through the United States from New York to California and back. Telling the people of his idea and showing his drawings. His plan was for the French people to make a gift of the statue to the United States and the Americans would provide the land and build a pedestal for it. He had already selected the perfect spot—Bedloe’s Island in the New York Harbor, where passengers crowed on board ship would welcome travelers with a powerful image of the freedom they had come far to find.
Although Bartholdi’s original plan was created in 1875, due to political unrest in France, and lack of funding he was unable to complete the statue until 1881. In 1876, he sent a reminder to the Americans as this marked the hundredth anniversary of the American Declaration of Independence. The hand with the torch was put on display at the International Exhibition in Philadelphia. Nine hundred thousand people stopped to gaze at the 30 feet tall structure. One finger was taller than a man; a single fingernail more than a foot across. People paid fifty cents to climb the stairs up the balcony surrounding the torch. The admission fee of course, went to help pay for the statue.
Liberty’s head was put on display at the Paris World Fair in 1878. In 1883, the work began to assemble the statue. Starting with Liberty’s feet, workmen began riveting the large pieces of the cooper skin to the iron and steel skeleton designed by Alexandre Gustave Eiffel. By the end of the year, the statue was finished, and she stood looking down on the roofs of Paris, waiting to go to her new home.
It had been twelve years since Bartholdi envisioned his plan. During that time the Americans had an architect, Richard Morris Hunt design a pedestal for the statue. His plan was to repair the walls of an old, star-shaped fort that stood on the island and use it as foundation for the pedestal. But, in 1883 Liberty stood ready in Paris and work on her pedestal had not yet begun.
Construction began is 1884, but before the base was half finished all work suddenly came to a halt as there was no money to finish the project. The people did not want to pay for a “lighthouse” for New York City; it was New York’s gift they said. Joseph Pulitzer, the owner of The World newspaper, wrote articles asking for donations and promised to print the name of every single person who donated money, no matter how small to the pedestal fund. He persuaded newspaper editors in other towns to join the campaign. Thousands of small donations poured in—many of them less than a dollar. In five months they added up to $100,000 and by August 1885 there was enough money to finish the pedestal. To honor the citizens who had sent small donations, pennies, nickels, and dimes went into the wet mortar used to lay the last stone in the pedestal.
Back in Paris, Bartholdi and his men began taking the statue apart and packing it section by section. It took 214 huge crates. The statue arrived two months before the pedestal was completed and sat in storage on Bedloe’s Island waiting while workmen poured twenty-seven tons of concrete to form the base. The crates set for nearly a year until the pedestal was ready.
Then came the difficult task of recreating the statue. The copper skin was attached to the skeleton with three hundred thousand copper rivets. The completed statue as covered with a huge French flag for the dedication on October 28, 1886. Hundreds of thousands of spectators watched from the shore in New York and New Jersey and from boats of all sizes in the harbor. Bartholdi climbed the steps to the top of the statue and waited impatiently for the signal to pull the cord that would drop the flag from its face. When heard a round of applause far below, he thought it was his signal and bands played, people cheered, cannon boomed and the ships tooted. The speech New York Senator, William Evarts was to make was never given, as the statue was already revealed. Americans were delighted with their French gift.
In 1883 a young woman, Emma Lazarus wrote a poem. “The New Colossus”, about the statue of Liberty with the famous words:
“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!”
Millions of immigrants came to the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and this poem seemed to capture the newcomers’ feelings about the statue. In 1903 a bronze plaque inscribed with the poem was added to the base.
During World War I a change as made in the statue. It was decided to make the torch shine. In 1916, hundreds of windows were cut in the torch’s flame and powerful lights were installed inside. The torch did glow brightly, but the new windows also leaked. Gradually the iron ribs inside the torch and right arm rusted. By the late 1970’s Liberty’s shoulder was in need of major repair, and her head had tilted until one point of her crown as threatening to poke a hole through the cooper skin of her right arm. Over the years, the salty, polluted air of the New York Harbor had also taken a tool on the statue. Her skin was strained by corrosion on the outside and covered with graffiti on the inside.
In 1980, an engineer named Jacques Moutard was repairing old statues in France and wondered about the condition of the Statue of Liberty. He discussed this with Phillippe Vallery-Radot, a wealthy friend and supporter. Together they contacted the United States National Parks Service and drew up a plan of repair. In hopes of completing it in time for her hundredth anniversary in 1986. The repairs themselves could not be started until a detail drawing of every part of the statue was completed. The cost of this alone was $5 million dollars. The actual repairs were estimated at $30 million dollars. President Ronald Reagon launched a commission to advertise and campaign for donations. The Daughters of the American Revolution joined forces with “Liberty Love Day”, collecting funds to preserve Liberty. In 1984 the statue was surrounded with a 305 foot tall scoffold. Inside the statue, workers cleaned off paint and rust with liquid nitrogen. The iron ribs were removed and replaced with stainless steel ribs. Each of the eighteen hundred ribs had a different shape, and to avoid leaving the statue unsupported, only four ribs could be replaced at one time. The head was gently tipped back in place and helicopters lifted the corroded torch away. In November 1985, the original torch was replaced with a new one made of thin pounded copper sheets. The flame had no windows, but was covered with gold leaf and lighted from the outside by sixteen powerful floodlights located in the rim of the torch.
On July 3, 1986 everything was ready for Liberty’s centennial celebration. French President, Francois Mitterand joined President Ronald Reagon for the relighting ceremony. On the fourth of July there was a parade of twenty-two tall ships in the harbor and fireworks to celebrate Liberty’s hundredth birthday.
Our beloved statue has united Americans twice in an effort to welcome Liberty to our world. Millions of immigrants instantly recognize it as an image of freedom and opportunity. It remains a beautiful monument to American pride and love of the ideal of Liberty and friendship with the French and American people. Until you actually take a ferry to this beautiful island you can not really appreciate the size and workmanship involved in creating such a dream.
Monday, November 14, 2011
October Meeting
http://youtu.be/YywqGYwORg4
http://youtu.be/42yO2FUWL6A
http://youtu.be/YUFANQJel8Y
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Schedule for 2011 - 2012
August Meeting
http://youtu.be/WEfZx4nwsRE
http://youtu.be/AHjZqsb9oKU
http://youtu.be/DY2R74ZQds8
http://youtu.be/_7JvsKwCWfk
hhttp://youtu.be/uaLgJn0Wvo8ttp://
Monday, December 6, 2010
Visit to VA/VS Hospital in Battle Creek
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Next Meeting