The Statue of Liberty: A Closer Look

December 12, 2019

The torch, the crown, the Greco-Roman stylized robe flowing gracefully from Lady Liberty's broad shoulders to her perfectly formed feet, we all know what she represents.  Her powerful arms bearing the torch seem to illuminate the path to a land of possibilities. For over 100 years, the popular narrative is that the Lady is welcoming the "poor huddled masses." Wrong.

Those immigrants may have been immigrating from countries with monarchies, iron clad social strata, and bleak penniless futures. Surely, their eyes were on the Lady, regal, resolute, representing the end and the beginning of their journey...but what about those chains and broken shackles around her beautifully formed toes.

...a Washington Post May, 2019 story  upended just about every idea I had about the The Statue of Liberty. The purpose of the monument, originally developed in France, was to celebrate the end of slavery in the United States, not, as I have believed for years, to welcome the arrival of immigrants.

What happened? Why? Will the original purpose be restored?

The monument was imagined in 1865 by Édouard de Laboulaye , a Frenchman passionate about the cause of freedom. He was an abolitionist, a friend of Abraham Lincoln, and a scholar of the U.S. Constitution. The French Revolution had torn through his country 65 years before that. The emancipation of slaves in America and freedom as a universal right rang a bell for him. He gave epic speeches about freedom and by 1867 floated the idea of creating a commemorative gift that would celebrate importance of the liberation of slaves in America.

The French artist Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi  had proposed a statue resembling Lady Liberty for the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. His idea was rejected.  Bartholdi recalled that Édouard de Laboulaye had proposed in 1865 that a monument representing freedom and democracy be created for the United States. Thus began a 16-year campaign of fund-raising and politicking by these two enterprising Frenchmen.

By 1884 Bartholdi had completed the statue in France. In 1886 he oversaw the statue's reassembly on Bedloe's Island, an outcropping in New York harbor that he saw on one of his fund raising trips to America and immediately envisioned as its placement (6 years before the nearby Ellis Island became a gateway to America).

Immediately after the statue's dedication, the Black Press pushed back. Racism, discrimination, and segregation persisted.  The two Frenchmen's ideal was heartfelt, perhaps propelled by projected wishes for an end of the monarchy in their own country. For African-Americans, it was a bitter pill to swallow. Still is.

The new Statue of Liberty Museum in New York harbor will surprise, shock is not too strong a word, most visitors. Forget the plaque with the Emma Lazarus poem — “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” — added until 17 years later, in 1903.

The 305-foot statue's original purpose was to celebrate the end of slavery.

In an early model of the statue by the French sculptor Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi from 1870, Lady Liberty is depicted holding broken chains in her left hand, a clear reference to emancipation. Bartholdi based the statue on the Roman goddess Libertas, who is usually depicted wearing a Phrygian cap, traditionally worn by freed Roman slaves.

In Bartholdi’s final model, the broken chains in the statue’s hand were replaced with a tablet that represented the rule of law. Bartholdi placed the broken shackle and chains beneath Lady Liberty’s feet, making it nearly impossible for visitors to see at most angles.

Above and below: pull-quotes in italics from a May, 2019  New York Times story:

The museum doesn’t shy away from the fact that this symbol of “universal liberty” was far from a reality for people of color and women during the late 19th century and for decades afterward.

That point is highlighted by a quote taken from the African-American-owned Cleveland Gazette, which wrote one month after the statue’s opening, “Shove the Bartholdi statue, torch and all, into the ocean until the ‘liberty’ of this country is such as to make it possible for an inoffensive and industrious colored man in the South to earn a respectable living for himself and family, without being ku-kluxed, perhaps murdered, his daughter and wife outraged, and his property destroyed.” It also quotes a suffragist pointing out the inconsistency of using a female figure as the face.

The Statue of Liberty...The American Myth or The American Dream?

I had to revise the narrative I've believed for years.

How about you? Pass the story along, the timing is perfect.

xxxxxxx

Photo courtesy of Statue of Liberty Museum

https://libertyellisfoundation.org/statueoflibertymuseum/gallery.html

 

Comments

[Rich Wilson]

Fabulous - well done...

[Susan Sullivan]

Interesting Paul.

[Debbie Soglin]

fascinating.
Thank you, PT

[Myke Farricker]

What an amazing story! You should send this to the Boston Globe to have them publish it! Nobody knows this!

[Paul A. Tamburello, Jr. AKA pt at large]

Not sure how many know the facts. The ones who do know haven't pro-actively contradicted the popular narrative people like you and me have believed for so long. The reason I wrote the story is to set the record straight.

[Jeff]

Paul I think you bought into a liberal agenda. Many have claimed various reasons for and meaning of the Statue, however it's original meaning and reason was to comemorate the friendship between France and the US in their struggle for Liberty (Freedom). The Statue of Liberty. Liberty as a human endeavor striving for an ideal, not specific to one group or cause.

[Paul A. Tamburello, Jr. aka pt at large]

Not doubting that France and America have historically bonded over the ideal of freedom. Quoting from the Statue of Liberty Museum: "Recognizing the need to focus on more than just the vague and often dubious ideal of American “liberty,” the museum’s designers highlight the doubts of black Americans and women who saw their personal liberties compromised on a daily basis in the 1880s, when the statue opened. They also spotlight a bit of history that is often forgotten: that the French creators intended the statue as a commemoration of the abolition of slavery in the United States."