She was tweaked!   The Statue of Liberty was originally destined for Egypt. Sculptor Frederic Bartholdi was inspired by the Sphinx and wanted to construct a lighthouse twice its size. Egypt went into debt before it could finance the project. When there was a call for design for the Statue of Liberty, Bartholdi tweaked his lighthouse design to the statue we see today.

NOT a gift   A monument  raised to U.S. independence was suggested by the French. It was to be a joint project of the French and U.S. people with the French financing the statue and the U.S. providing the site and building the pedestal.

Crowdsourcing to the rescue    The statue was built in France, shipped overseas in 214 wooden crates, many of which were mislabeled. It was to be assembled on Bedloe Island in the New York Harbor, but fundraising was difficult. The torch-bearing arm was even displayed at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876. Fundraisers were actually held in completed parts of the statue like the head and the knee. Publisher Joseph Pulitzer, of the New York World, started a drive for donations to finish the project and attracted more than 120,000 contributors, some of whom gave 50 cents.

Lightning and the lighthouse   The Statue of Liberty’s torch, 305 feet above sea level was originally used as a lighthouse. It contained nine electric arc lamps that could be seen twenty-four miles out to sea. The Statue was the first American lighthouse to use electricity. It’s height and makeup also makes it a target for multiple lightning strikes.

Do you know your Roman numerals?   A figure of a robed Roman liberty goddess, she holds a torch above her head with her right hand. In her left hand, she carries a tablet inscribed July 4, 1776 in Roman numerals, the date of the U.S. Declaration of Independence.

Afraid of heights? Don’t lookdown.   The real name of the Statue of Liberty is Liberty Enlightening the World. However, she is more often referred to as Lady Liberty. Are the seven rays in her crown a symbol of the 7 oceans and 7 continents? Or are they sun rays because she is divine? The crown alone has 354 vertigo-inducing steps and 25 windows.

Beauty is in the eye of the sculptor   Who did Bartholdi use for his model of the statue? Sources differ – maybe his mother’s head, his wife’s body or even his brother. The Lady is 35 feet across the waist and with a size 879 shoe. The broken chains at her feet are a symbol of freedom from slavery after the American Civil War.

Oops. No givers?   When Batholdi was trying to raise funds for the stand, he proposed to have each state (there were 38 at the time) donate. The discs were to contain the names of the states that gave support. Unfortunately, none gave any help, which is why the discs are blank to this day.

What took so long?   The words from a sonnet by Emma Lazarus, the familiar “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-tossed to me/I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” are inscribed on the inner wall of the pedestal. Meant as a symbol of immigration and opportunity, they were not added to the plaque until 1903, 17 years after her death.

Was the completion a big deal? You betcha.
   The statue’s completion was marked by New York’s first ticker-tape parade and a dedication ceremony presided over by President Grover Cleveland.

Hardcore trivia lover?

In 1916 the statue suffered minor damages from the Germans during WWI and nobody has been allowed to go into the torch since.

Bedloe Island, where the statue was installed, was the home to the Lenape Indians, later a fortification during the American Revolution and eventually in 1738, a quarantine station to inspect incoming ships for smallpox. The island was renamed Liberty Island in the 1930s and is part of the National Park Service.

RESOURCES

https://www.biography.com/writer/emma-lazarus

https://www.nps.gov/stli/learn/historyculture/emma-lazarus.htm

https://theculturetrip.com/north-america/usa/new-york/new-york-city/articles/a-brief-history-of-the-statue-of-liberty/
https://www.hotels.com/go/usa/statue-of-liberty-fun-facts

https://lighthousefriends.com/light.asp?ID=581
https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/the-statue-of-liberty

https://www.marshallnewsmessenger.com/opinion/columns/halliday-what-was-bedloes-island/article
https://www.history.com/topics/landmarks/statue-of-liberty

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_of_Liberty