1886 Statue of Liberty
On Bedloe Island, in New York Harbor, stands the Statue of Liberty, holding aloft a lighted torch known and loved by free men all over the world.
The statue, conceived and designed by M. Fredéric Bartholdi for the Franco-American Union, was paid for by popular subscriptions collected in France at the time of the hundredth anniversary of American independence.
The statue was exhibited in Paris in October, 1881, but not until October 28, 1886, did it finally stand on its pedestal in New York Harbor.
It cost more than a half million dollars, weighs over 225 tons and was more than five years in construction.
In 1916 President Wilson gave the signal for the permanent lighting of the entire statue. The lighthouse service of the Federal Government tends the torch – that this beacon light may never go out.
AMERICA
Mother of Exiles
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles, From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips, “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send those, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”
Emma Lazarus
