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The
origin of the Statue of Liberty
I suppose the recent devastation caused by hurricanes Katrina
an Rita have kept the USA in the minds of the majority of
people in this country as well as in other parts of the
world in weeks gone by. The source of attention in the recent
past was of course where the Hurricane's struck, the southern
states on the Gulf of Mexico near the mouth of the Mississippi.
The towns of New Orleans, Baton Rouge and later Galveston
took the full blunt of storms and hundreds of lives were
lost.Many deaths resulted in the unprepared factor in the
area. Again in New Orleans it was the poorer class that
suffered most, surely a contraction of the word associated
with the Statue of Liberty standing a few thousand miles
away in New York harbour. An excerpt from the poem of Emma
Lazarus reads "Give me your tired, your poor, your
huddled masses yearning to be free, I lift my lamp beside
the golden door".
This was the dream of thousands of emigrants, including
Irish, who left their homes in desolate countries to seek
employment in the 'Land of Free'. Somehow we sometimes forget
the thousands of slaves who were brought into this land
to work on the plantations, the southern states never knew
freedom.
It was this and the thoughts of where that statue had been
intended for that set me thinking of the story of the Statue
of Liberty. To really start this tale we must go back in
years and some thousands of miles from New York. We must
in fact go to another well known harbour that was probably
in existence before New York was ever heard of, the harbour
of Alexandria at the mouth of the Nile in Egypt.
Frederic Auguste Bartholdi(1834-1904) was a French sculptor
who liked to erect large statues. He specialised in larger
than life sized and travelled to see figures of Rome and
ancient Greece. He went to Egypt to view the Pyramids and
the Sphinx and was overwhelmed by their sheer size and mystical
appearance. It was following his visit to Egypt that this
idea of a large statue shifted from large to colossal. He
had heard of the Pharoahs Lighthouse at Alexandria and had
seen Pompeys Pillars at the port.(There is an exact copy
of one of the Pillars near the Wexford/New Ross road in
Co.Wexford.) It was on this journey that he met a man who
also had big ideas. This man was Count Ferdinand de Lesseps
who had a dream of linking the Red Sea with the Mediterranean
by means of canal through the desert. While many said that
the Court was mad to have such an idea Bartholdi thought
it would be a wonderful plan, and decided that he would
contribute to this magnificent venture by building a colossal
monument to match the size of the project. He decided it
would be twice the size of the Sphinx and would be patterned
after the Roman goddess of Liberty. The theme of the statue
would be "Egypt carrying light to Asia". When
he sought finance for his idea he could find no sponsor
so he returned to France with the thoughts of the lady still
in his head.
He was not long back in France until the Franco-Prussian
war started and he was called upon to do his duty for his
country. He became a major in the French army and following
the defeat of France he sailed for America, the Land of
the Free. Once again his thoughts turned to his monster
statue and Liberty. He was struck with the amazing skyline
as the boat entered New York harbour and in his quick mind
he visualised the statue standing on the island in the harbour
entrance.
Later when he had surveyed the area he choose Bedlos's island
(Now Liberty island) as the place for the statue. Bartholdi
met with several Americans and told them the addition a
statue would make to the appearance of the harbour entrance.
He now knew that he could count on some help regarding the
site for the statue, so when he came back to France he organised
a lottery and raised enough money to commence work on the
statue. When it was completed it was sent across the Atlantic
in 214 packing cases.There it was assembled and erected
on the foundation which required 24,000 tons of concrete.
The statue weighs 225 tons and stands at 151 feet from the
base to the torch. The crown on her head contains seven
spikes. On October 28 1886 over one million people lined
the streets of New York to watch the official opening parade.
This is when another habit that is with us to this day occurred
for the first time.
Some office person unwound one of the spools of tape to
record messages on the ticker tape and others followed their
example and in minutes the New York ticker tape welcome
was born. Among those who went out to the island on that
occasion was Grover Cleveland (President of the USA). Bartholdi
himself was in the head of the statue to release the French
tricolour when the speaking was over. He was to get the
signal for this from a boy on the ground by the wave of
a handkerchief. Senator William Evatts who was noted as
a long speaker was making his speech and dragging it out
as usual when he stopped for a moment to sneeze. The boy
thinking it was over waved the hankie and Bartholdi pulled
the cord to release the flag. At once ships blew their whistles
and bands started to play, that ended the speech. So Bartholdi
had his dream fulfiled even if it wasn’t in the place
he originally intended. The official name of the statue
is Liberty Enlighting the World".
Courtesy of Willie White and the Carlow Nationalist
November 2005
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