By INK MENDELSOHN
Smithsonian News Service
classic beauty. Thick curls frame
strong, yet serene, features - well
o
chin: Tall, full-figured and stately in
bearing, the Statue of Liberty’s face
and form are familiar to millions all
over the world.
Her curls - some of them close to
eight feet long - surround a noble
head that is 10 feet from ear to ear
and 17 feet three inches from cran-
ium to.chin. Each eye is 21, feet
wide, her nose is 41% feet long and
her mouth measures three feet
across. Liberty is 151 feet tall with-
out her pedestal.
It is her pedestal, however, that
anchors the lady firmly to old Fort
Wood on Liberty Island in New
York City’s windy Upper Bay. The
granite-faced pedestal is 89 feet
high with a 65-foot-high base,
making the entire statue 305 feet
tall. Until the turn of the century,
Liberty alone dominated the New
York skyline. Today, she remains
the most colossal statue in the
world.
DESIGNED BY FRENCH
SCULPTOR
For almost 100 years, the classi-
cal goddess, designed by French
sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi
and created in the iamge of his
mother, has watched over New
York’s harbor. She bears a torch
symbolizing liberty and wears a
seven-spiked crown radiating to
each of the seven continents and the
seven seas. At the statue’s feet are
broken shackles signifying freedom
from tyranny. In her left hand, she
clasps a 24-foot tablet marking
America’s birthday, July 4, 1776 - in
Roman numerals, of course.
All in all, it was quite a birthday
gift that the United States received
in Paris on July 4, 1884, when
Ferdinand de Lesseps, president of
the Union Franco-Americaine,
presented the statue of “Liberty
Enlightening the Wrold” to Levi P.
Morton, U.S. Minister to Paris. On
that festive occasion, de Lesseps
noted that France’s gift represented
the contributions of 180 cities, 40
Restoration begins
general councils, a large number of
societies and more than 100,000 sub-
cribers.
“We commit it to your care, Mr.
Minister, that it may remain for-
ever the pledge of the bonds which
should unite France and the great
American nation.” What de Lesseps
didn’t know then was that, by the
time the statue was on her way to
America, the French committee
would be relieved to be rid of the
450,000-pound lady.
Liberty Enlightening the World
wasn’t even a gleam in her crea-
tor’s eye until the evening in 1865
when Eduoard de Laboulaye gath-
ered a small group of French intel-
lectuals around his dinner table.
Laboulaye, a distinguished jurist,
academic and ardent admirer of the
republican form of government,
believed passionately in America.
To his dinner guests, he sang the
praises of that long-lived republic
which stood in contrast to monarchi-
cal Europe and to a France in
constant political upheaval.
JOINT PROJECT
According to sculptor Bartholdi’s
account, Laboulaye speculated
about a joint French-American
project, a monument ‘‘to be built in
America as a memorial to their
independence.” It would have been
politically dangerous for French
republicans to erect a statue to
liberty in Paris in Napoleon III's
Second Empire, but America was a
different matter. Government at
home could be more safely criti-
cized through a statue across the
sea.
Bartholdi set sail for America in
the spring of 1871 in search of what
Laboulaye had called a ‘happy
idea,” a plan for a monument that
would ‘‘excite public enthusiasm.”
That summer, he traveled every-
where, making new American
friends for himself and the monu-
ment. The sculptor visited the poet
Longellow and smoked a cigar with
President Grant.
Bartholdi sent Laboulaye a report
of his first impressions of America,
right down to her peas: “Every-
thing here is big, even the petits-
pois...” As he traveled, the monu-
ment took definite shape in his
mind. Liberty Enlightening the
e®
By INK MENDELSOHN
Smithsonian News Service
“Oh,.oh - daylight,” Paul Kinney
of the Statue of Liberty’s American
Museum of Immigration, was guid-
ing another of the many millions of
visitors up the steep, double-flight
spiral staircase inside the statue.
Along the 168-step journey from
Liberty's feet to her crown, he had
seen light filtering through a small
hole in her copper toga - somewhere
around the hemline.
After almost 100 years, even a
symbol-of American can wear out -
especially if she is subjected con-
stantly to salty air, high winds, air
pollution and the strain of forever
holding aloft a 21-foot torch. That
! torch was first lighted with great
celebration at Liberty's dedication
in New- York City’s harbor on Oct.
28, 1886. President Grover Cleveland
spoke “eloquently of liberty enlight-
ening the world, but the statue’s
sculptor, Frederic Auguste Bar-
tholdi; ‘complained that the torch
cast the light of a “‘glowworm.”
The statue’s lighting has been
improved considerably over the
years with ever-more-powerful elec-
trical systems, but time has worked
against Liberty in other ways. Her
“pones’” have bcome weak in places
and her ‘‘skin” has rusted inside
and out.
The Statue of Liberty’s deteriorat-
ing condition has worried both pri-
vate citizens and the National Park
Service for some years. Since 1933,
the Park Service has been the
guardian of the National Monument,
which teday includes the Statue of
Liberty on Liberty Island and Ellis
Island, the former immigration sta-
tion a half mile away.
In 1982, President Reagan
announced the formation of The
Statue-of Liberty-Ellis Island Cen-
tennial Commission and named Lee
A. Iacocca its chairman. The com-
mission’s goal is to raise $230 mil-
lion entirely from private sources -
including America’s school children,
ethnic groups and large corpora-
tions - for the restoration and pres-
ervation of the Statue of Liberty and
Ellis Island by 1986 and 1992, their
respective centennials.
The Statue of Liberty is familiar
to millions, but not many give much
thought. to how she’s made or what
kind of shape she’s in. Her classic
body is formed by a thin molded-
copper exterior skin made up of 300
pieces hung independently from an
interior support skeleton. This iron
Eiffel a few years before he created
his famour tower, is basically in
good condition but does require
strengthening.
The structural connection of the
upraised torch-bearing arm to the
central iron pylon that is the
statue’s backbone is seriously weak-
ened and must be rebuilt. Every
effort will be made to repair the
ailing arm in place, but testing may
reveal the need to remove it.
The statue’s torch, however, defi-
nitely will have to be removed and
replaced. The legendary beacon is
corroded and leaky and, according
to joint French-American architec-
tural and engineering team’s 1983
report, is at ‘definite risk of struc-
tural failure.” Once, visitors loved
to stand on the torch balcony, but it
was closed in 1916 because access
was difficult. Today, ascent to the
torch remains the dubious privilege
of Park Service personnel. “Her
torch is a little loose,” Ross Hol-
land, the director of restoration and
preservation of the Statue of Lib-
erty-Ellis Island Foundation, says.
“It’s waving about 15 inches.”
The torch and balcony will be
rebuilt and their replacements con-
structed according to the sculptor’s
design. The present internally
lighted torch flame made of copper
and hundreds of pieces of amber
glass wil Ibe replaced with a gilded
solid copper flame like Bartholdi’s
original creation. New external
lighting will enhance the torch’s
golden glow.
The structural report shed light
on another, rather startling fact -
Liberty’s head is two feet off center.
Apparently, there were slight mis-
calculations in reassembling the
great gift from France after she
arrived from Paris in 214 crates.
“She looks beautiful,” Holland says,
“and since this isn’t a structural
problem, we won’t do anything
about it.”
Other external work to get Lib-
includes replacing with modern
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World would be ‘‘a statue of colossal
proportions which would surpass all
that have ever existed since the
most ancient times.” Bedloe’s
Island in New York harbor, gate-
way to the New World, became his
choice as an appropriate site for the
American colossus.
TOOK TIME
But monuments take time to rise
and colossal monuments take lots of
time. Meant for Amercia’s 1876
centennial, Liberty would not come
to these shores for another decade.
Committees “vere formed on both
sides of the Atlantic, the Union
Franco-Americaine in 1875 and the
American Committee in 1877. The
French would raise funds to build
the statue and transport it to the
United States. The Americans would
design, build and pay for the pedes-
tal. Congress acknowledged the gift
in 1877 and authorized a search for
a site.
During the long construction
period, the statue was not idle.
Liberty did her part in self-promo-
tion and fund-raising. Her right
forearm and torch made a hit in
Philadelphia at America’s Centen-
nial Exposition. Her head appeared
at the Paris Universal Exhibition of
1878. And in the summer of 1882,
when she was completed to the
waist, Bartholdi gave a little lunch-
eon for 20 journalists in her right
knee. Tireless promotor though he
was, sometimes even Bartholdi
grew impatient. He wrote to his
mother: “One cannot imagine all I
have had to do and especially to
wait, it was like the cooking of a
poor crawfish.”
NEW ENGINEER
In 1879, the project's original
architect, Violett-le-Duc, died, and a
new engineer was chosen. “Gustave
Eiffel was the logical choice for
Bartholdi,”” observes Robert Vogel,
curator of mechanical and civil
engineering at the Smithsonian’s
Museum of American History.
‘Even before his famous tower, he
had an excellent reputation based
on his bridges - spectacular in their
size, span and scope.”
Like any classic beauty, the
Statue of Liberty has good ‘‘bones.”
Her innovative iron skeleton,
Standing tall
The Statue of Liberty stands
independence.
designed by Eiffel, is the frame-
work which supports a fragile
copper skin approximately the
thickness of two quarter-dollars.
First to go
replica in 1985.
alloys the corroded interior from
strapwork supporting the copper
skin; replacing worn parts of the
skin with pre-patinized (green)
copper; reshaping skin portions dis-
torted from corrosion, and bathing
the entire statue in a mild detergent
to remove stains, pollution and
other foreign materials.
Beauty may be only skin deep,
but Lady Liberty will get a number
of practical visitor improvements as
well. One new feature wil lbe
closed-circuit TV cameras that will
allow those unable to make the
arduous climb to her crown to get a
good look at the inside of the statue.
However, after years of experience,
David Moffitt, superintendent of the
Statue of Liberty National Monu-
ment, knows what a magnet that
steep and narrow spiral staircase is.
“Once, I was climbing the stairs
behind a visitor, a bit impatient at
his slow pace. When I got to the
crown, I saw that the man was
blind. From that moment on, I
realized that people climb the
Statue of Liberty for more than the
view.”
MATURITIES YIELDS *
6 MONTHS 11.50%
1 YEAR 12.60
2 YEAR 12.85
5 YEAR 14.00
as a constant reminder of our
Bartholdi chose copper because it is
light, strong yet easily worked,
attractive and resistant to salt-laden
air. Because his giant work would
have to travel across the ocean, he
constructed it in 300 pieces.
No part of Liberty’s shell rests
directly on the parts below; each is
hung independently on the iron skel-
eton, foreshadowing the develop-
ment of the skyscraper in the late
19th century. Thanks to the genius
of Eiffel’s design, the statue has
been able to adjust to temperature
and atmospheric changes and to
resist the strong winds that buffeted
her.
WITHSTANDS WEATHER
Liberty has withstood the winds of
adversity and change as well. After
her formal presentation to the
American envoy, she stood for
months in lonely majesty, towering
over Paris rooftops, in back of
Bartholdi’s workshop. She then
spent long months on French docks
packed in 214 custom-made crates
marked for reassembly in New
York’s harbor. Liberty lacked the
promised American pedestal still on
the drawing board of its designer,
Richard Morris Hunt, dean of
American architecture. There
wasn’t enough money fo start the
job.
Boston, Philadelphia, San Fran-
cisco, Chicago, Cleveland, St. Louis,
Minneapolis and Baltimore newspa-
pers editorialized that their cities
would raise the money in no time
should the statue be offered to
them. The New York Times
expessed moral outrage: ‘‘This
statue is dear to us, though we have
never looked upon it, and no third-
rate town is going to step in and
take it from us.”
It took another New York paper to
the New York World, began a
relentless ‘‘people’s campaign” that
didn’t stop until the necessary
amount remaining for the pedestal’s
construction, $100,000 had been |
raised. Daily he recorded every
contribution, no matter how small,
and printed letters like this one: “I
am only a sewing girl but I am in
full sympathy with your effort.” She |
sent 50 cents. rs
DEDICATION DAY J
On the great day of Liberty’s
dedication, Oct. 28, 1886 - a day so |
wet and foggy that the fireworks |
had to be. postponed - it is unlikely
that President Cleveland, Barthoidi |
or any of the dignitaries and guests
gave any thought to the hundreds of
immigrants unloading their scanty
belongings at Manhattan’s Battery.
They certainly in no way connected
the immigrants with the statue. But
two poets foresaw what Liberty
would come to mean to the millions
of immigrants who came to Amer-
ica in great waves from the year of
her dedication until the mid-1920s.
Emma Lazarus, a young poet |
with a growing literary reputation, . |
had written an ode to Liberty to
help raise money for her pedestal.
In Emma’s poem, the Statue of °
Liberty became the ‘Mother of
Exiles.” Famed poet James Russell
etre” - literally, a reason to be -
“which it wanted before.”
NATIONAL MONUMENT
In an irony of history, the Statue
of Liberty became a national monu-
ment in the same year, 1924, that
the National Origins Act set a ceil-
ing on immigration and established
a national origins quota system. .
Once again, Liberty’s meaning was
transformed. The tide of immigra-
tion ebbed, and, in two world wars,
of them came home - to the Statue
of Liberty’s welcome. |
And so it came to pass that Lady
Liberty - a handsome Parisian
immigrant - became the symbol of
America herself. Even in this day of
women’s liberation, she is one lady
everyone wants to keep on her |
pedestal. ]
Bank officials
discuss merger
Board members o First Eastern |
Corp., Wilkes-Barre and Scranton
National Bank have concurrently
agreed to amended terms of a
proposal that would result in a
merger of the two financial institu-
tions.
The announcement was made
jointly following board meetings of
the two organizations by Richard M.
Ross, Jr., president of First Eastern
Robert V. Horger.
Under the amended proposal
would receive two and one-quarter
each share of Scranton National |
stock. That figure represents an
additional one-quarter share from
the two shares in the original |
merger agreement. In addition, |
board members of First Eastern
agreed that Horger would become
vice chairman of First Eastern |
Bank upon consumation of the
merger. ae
Ross said he felt the amendment
was warranted following a reap-
praisal of Scranton National’s
recent progress. ;
First announcement of a proposed
merger between First Eastern and
Scranton National came in Febru-
ary of this year. 7
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