The Story of the Statue of Liberty: Symbol of Friendship and Hope

What is the Statue of Liberty?

For more than a century The Statue of Liberty has stood in New York’s harbour as a symbol of freedom in the world. This gigantic copper statue is also a celebration or French-American friendship. This is its history: In 1865 a French historian, Edouard de Laboulaye and the French architect Frederic Auguste Bartholdi discussed the idea of giving a great monument of Liberty to the United States from France as a gift and a sign of friendship. In 1867 Bartholdi went to America and decided where to put the Statue: Beldoe’s Island, in New York harbour.

Construction and Transport

In 1875 after some discussion, the French agreed to pay for the statue and the Americans for the base and then the constructions began. Alexandre Gustave Eiffel, the designer of the metal frame of the Statue built it in a suburb of Paris.In 1884 the Statue was completed and shipped to the United States in 214 cases aboard the French ship Isére. The parts were reassembled in New York in 1885, where on 28th June it was unveiled. The Statue, which is 151 feet and 1 inch tall and weighs 450.000 grants and refugees as they arrived in the U.S.A. It soon became for them the symbol of America’s promise of better living conditions.