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By
Mary
Bellis
Frederic Auguste Bartholdi
(1834-1904)
The Statue
of Liberty arrived in New York Harbor on June 19, 1885. The monument was
a gift of friendship from the people of France to the people of the United
States, intended to commemorate the centennial of the American Declaration
of Independence, some ten years earlier. Sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi's
Statue of Liberty enlightening the world stands more than 300 feet high.
French historian
Edouard Laboulaye suggested the presentation of this statue to the United
States, commemorating the alliance of France and the United States during
the American Revolution. The copper colossus was designed by Frederic Auguste
Bartholdi and erected according to plans by Gustave
Eiffel.
 Design
Patent Drawing For Statue of Liberty
Frederic Auguste
Bartholdi was a French sculptor born in Alsace. He created many
monumental sculptures, his most famous work was the Statue of Liberty.
The statue is constructed of copper sheets which are assembled on a framework
of steel supports designed by Eugene-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc and Alexandre-Gustave
Eiffel. For transit to America, the figure was disassembled into 350 pieces
and packed in 214 crates. Four months later, it was reassembled on Bedloe's
Island (renamed Liberty Island in 1956). On October 28, 1886, President
Grover Cleveland dedicated the Statue of Liberty before thousands of spectators.
Since the 1892 opening of nearby Ellis Island Immigration Station, Bartholdi's
Liberty has welcomed more than 12,000,000 immigrants to America. Emma Lazarus's
famous lines engraved on the statue's pedestal are linked to our conception
of the statue Americans call "Lady Liberty":
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
- Emma
Lazarus, "The New Colossus," 1883
The Bartholdi
Fountain
The Bartholdi Fountain was also
designed by Frederic Auguste Bartholdi the
sculptor of the Statue of Liberty.
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