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## June 2020

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### U.S. Census Bureau History: The Statue of Liberty

             On June 17, 1885, crates containing parts of the Statue of Liberty arrived in New York City, NY.  SculptorFrederic Auguste Bartholdi and engineer Gustave Eiffel packed hundreds of parts into more than 200 cratesfor transport to the United States from France.After being assembled on Bedloe's Island (renamed Liberty Island in 1956), President Grover Clevelandand other dignitaries dedicated the Statue of Liberty on October 28, 1886.Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress.

On June 17, 1885, a ship loaded with crates containing parts to build the statue arrived in New York City, NY's harbor.  Designed by sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi with an iron skeleton built by Gustave Eiffel, the effigy—formally titled "The Statue of Liberty Enlightening the World"—was a gift of friendship from the people of France to the United States.  Dedicated on October 28, 1886, the sighting of the Statue of Liberty upon sailing into New York City's harbor brought relief to millions of weary immigrants.  Today, the Statue of Liberty is recognized as a symbol of democracy and freedom throughout the world.

Following the Union victory that ended the American Civil War and the end to slavery in the United States, Edouard de Laboulaye, President of the French Anti-Slavery Society, proposed erecting a statue in the United States commemorating freedom, justice, and liberty.  With the help of sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, Laboulaye began raising funds to construct a statue he hoped would be completed in time for the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition and celebration of the Declaration of Independence.

The French committed to funding the statue's construction through public fees and even a lottery, while the United States promised to erect a pedestal upon which the statue would be built. Fundraising and construction delays on both sides of the Atlantic slowed progress on Bartholdi's statue.  Although engineering challenges delayed completion in time for America's centennial celebration, the sculptor did display the statue's arm holding the torch at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition and the completed head at the 1878 Paris World's Fair.  To address the challenges of supporting such a large statue, Bartholdi enlisted the assistance of Alexandre Gustave Eiffel (Eiffel Tower designer) in 1879 to design and build Liberty's iron skeleton.  In the meantime, the American effort to construct Liberty's base faced its own funding stumbling blocks.  American newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer collected more than $102,000 in donations from readers who saw their name among a list of donors printed in his New York City, NY, newspaper.  School children collected spare change, a poetry contest (won by "New Colossus" writer Emma Lazarus) raised funds, and architect Richard Morris Hunt (who would become famous for his design of the 1893 Chicago World's Fair and facade of New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art) donated the design of the statue's pedestal.

Bartholdi completed construction of the Statue of Liberty in France in July 1884.  During a ceremony held in Paris, France, on July 4, 1884, the U.S. Ambassador to France, Levi P. Morton, formally received "Liberty Enlightening the World."  The Statue of Liberty continued to overlook the French capital until January 1885, when workers began to carefully disassemble the statue and pack it into more than 350 crates for transport aboard the French frigate *Isere* leaving Ronen, France, in late May 1885.  Arriving off Sandy Hook, Middletown, NJ, on June 16, a naval parade escorted the *Isere* into New York Harbor the next day to the cheers of thousands of spectators who gathered along the New York and New Jersey waterfront.

The Statue of Liberty remained in storage until its Bedloe's Island pedestal was ready in April 1886.  Crews raced to erect the iron skeleton and copper skin, completing the project on October 19, 1886.  On the morning of October 28, 1886, more than 1 million spectators stood in the rain to watch New York City's first ticker tape parade.  Following an afternoon nautical parade, President Grover Cleveland formally dedicated the Statue of Liberty at a Bedloe's Island ceremony.  Millions lined the shoreline for weather-postponed fireworks and the nighttime illumination of the statue on November 1.

Initially cared for by the United States Lighthouse Board, President Theodore Roosevelt transferred the statue's supervision to the War Department in 1901, which assigned the Army Signal Corps and later military police to Bedloe's Island.  President Franklin D. Roosevelt transferred Liberty to the National Park Service in 1933.  An Act of Congress officially changed the name of Bedloe's Island to Liberty Island on August 3, 1956.

After welcoming arrivals to New York Harbor for nearly a century, the Statue of Liberty underwent an $86 million restoration that was completed in time for the statue's centennial and "Liberty Weekend" celebration July 3–6, 1986.  The Statue of Liberty continues to welcome immigrants dreaming of a better life in the United States and symbolizes America's freedom and prosperity to people around the world.  The statue, Liberty Island, and nearby Ellis Island are part of the Liberty National Monument, which welcomed more than 4.5 million visitors in 2016.

You can learn more about the Statue of Liberty using census data and records.  For example:- President  Grover Cleveland  (a former governor of New York) dedicated the Statue of Liberty on October 28, 1886.  Born in 1837, in  Camden, NJ , Cleveland was the only president to serve two nonsequential presidential terms winning the elections of 1884 and 1892.  Republican  Benjamin Harrison  defeated Cleveland during the 1888 presidential election.  The Democrats chose  William Jennings Bryan  instead of Cleveland in 1896.  Bryan lost the election to Republican  William McKinley .
- In addition to  Liberty  and  Ellis Islands , there are a number of other small islands in New York Harbor.  These include  Rikers Island , home to New York City's jail;  Hart Island , currently used as New York City's "potter's field" for burials of unclaimed bodies; and City Island—once was part of  Pelham, NY , but now is part of New York City, NY's Bronx borough (Census Tract 516)—which had a population of  4,362  in 2010; and Coney Island in New York's  Brooklyn borough , which is famous for its amusements, beach, hot dogs, and nightlife.
- Newspaper publishers  always sought novel competitions and advertising campaigns to boost readership of their newspapers.  With the Statue of Liberty's pedestal in need of funding, New York City newspaper tycoon  Joseph Pulitzer  promised to publish the name of every person who donated any amount of money to the pedestal's construction fund in the  New York World  newspaper that he purchased from  Jay Gould .  The  fundraising stunt  raised more then  $100,000  from approximately  125,000 donors  who eagerly purchased Pulitzer's newspaper to see their names in print.
- The Statue of Liberty was the first sight more than  12 million immigrants  had of the United States prior to being processed through Ellis Island Immigration Station between 1892 and 1954.  According to census data, the nation's foreign-born population grew from  9.2 million  in 1890 to  13.5 million  in 1910, and  14.2 million  in 1930.  More recently, nearly  19.8 million  reported being-foreign born in 1990, and the 2018 American Community Survey estimated that approximately  44.7 million  people living in the United States were foreign born.
- Following a 4-year restoration project led by automobile industry executive  Lee Iacocca , President  Ronald Reagan  presided over the  "Liberty Weekend"  festivities in honor of the Statue of Liberty's centennial, July 3–6, 1986.  Dignitaries and celebrities participating in the celebration included Secretary of the Interior  Donald Hodel ; producer  David Wolper ; composer  John Williams ; singers  Waylon Jennings ,  Kenny Rogers , and  Frank Sinatra ; film stars  Gene Kelly ,  Gregory Peck ,  Charlton Heston , and  Elizabeth Taylor ; and Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court  Warren Berger , who swore in immigrants at a naturalization ceremony held on  Ellis Island .
- If the Statue of Liberty was not constructed on New York's Bedloe's Island in 1885, it could have found a home at many other locations in the United States.  Fitting sites might include a location viewing the nearby Missouri River in  Liberty, MO ; along the banks of the  Trinity River  in  Liberty, TX ; nestled amid the  Catskill Mountains  in  Liberty, NY ; Guarding the  Des Plaines River  in  Libertyville, IL ; welcoming new residents to fast-growing  Liberty Lake, WA ; or overlooking the  Tiber Dam  in  Liberty County, MT .
- Emma Lazarus  wrote the poem  "The New Colossus"  in 1883 to raise money to build the Statue of Liberty's pedestal.   Cast in bronze  and affixed to Liberty's base in 1903, the poem's lines, "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-tost to me" symbolize immigrants' opportunity to follow dreams, enjoy freedom, and begin new lives in the United States.
- The Statue of Liberty calls  New York City, NY , home, but some of the most spectacular views of the landmark can been seen from  Liberty Park  in  Jersey City, NJ .  Shortly after the Statue of Liberty's dedication, the 1890 Census reported Jersey City was home to  163,003  people.  Its population peaked in 1930 at  316,715 , and in 2018 the city's population was estimated at  265,549 , making it New Jersey's second largest city after  Newark, NJ  (population  282,090 ). Jersey City created  Liberty Park  in 1976 on more than 1,200 acres of land reclaimed from transportation and manufacturing industries.  In addition to offering views of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, the park is also home to the  Liberty Science Center    and memorials to victims of the  World War I -era  Black Tom Island Explosion , the Holocaust, and the  September 11 terrorist attacks .
- The Statue of Liberty's pedestal was built on the remains of  Fort Wood —a star-shaped "bastion" fortification built on Bedloe's Island between 1806 and 1811 to defend  New York City, NY .  Similar fortifications continue to stand vigil over the nation's coastline, including  Fort Jay  on nearby Governor's Island;  Fort Mifflin    in  Philadelphia, PA ;  Fort Morgan    south of  Mobile, AL ;  Fort Ticonderoga    near  Burlington, VT ;  Fort McHenry  in  Baltimore, MD , which survived British "bombs bursting in air" and inspired Francis Scott Key to write the  *Star Spangled Banner*  in 1814; and the oldest masonry fort in the continental United States— Castillo de San Marcos —completed by the Spanish in 1695 to protect  St. Augustine, FL .
- Can't make it to  New York City, NY , to see Frederic Auguste Bartholdi's Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor?  There are numerous replicas of the statue throughout the United States, including a half-sized Statue of Liberty at the New York-New York Hotel and Casino in  Las Vegas, NV ; Bartholdi's descendants presented a smaller version of the Statue of Liberty to the citizens of  Duluth, MN ; a 30-foot Statue of Liberty stands atop the Liberty National Bank Building in  Buffalo, NY ; a 1956 replica stands on a granite pedestal near Interstate 459 in the  Birmingham, AL , suburb of  Vestavia Hills ; and a 20-foot statue made of Lego building bricks can be found at Legoland near  Lake Wales, FL .  Between 1949 and 1952, the  Boy Scouts of America  purchased and installed more than 200 Statue of Liberty replicas throughout the United States, including still standing examples near Haldimand Bay,  Mackinac County, MI ,  Seattle, WA , and  Tahlequah, OK .  International "Liberty enthusiasts" can find replicas in Paris, France; County Donegal, Ireland; Pristina, Kosovo; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Manila, Philippines; and Adelaide, Australia.

Prior to being renamed Liberty Island in 1956, the land on which the Statue of Liberty stands was known as Bedloe's Island.  Named for Isaac Bedloe who ownedthe island from 1667 to 1732, the land was subsequently a private summer residence and later quarantine site for people suffering from small pox, tuberculosis,typhus, yellow fever, and cholera.New York ceded the island to the federal government in 1800, for the construction of the 11-pointed, star-shaped Fort Wood to protect New York City, NY.The granite ramparts of Fort Wood serve as the base of the Statue of Liberty's pedestal.An Act of Congress changed the name of Bedloe's Island to Liberty Island on August 3, 1956, and today Liberty and nearby Ellis Islands are part of theLiberty National Monument.Image courtesy of the Library of Congress.Did you know?
The Korean War began on June 25, 1950.  In the decades since the 1953 armistice ended hostilities on the Korean Peninsula, thousands of Koreans have immigrated to the United States.  The 2010 Census reported that more than 1.7 million people identified as Korean.The cities of Los Angeles, CA, and New York, NY, have the largest Korean populations with 110,679 and 91,729 respectively, while Palisades Park, NJ is home to the largest concentration of Koreans who make up 46 percent of the city's population.
View larger imageEllis Island
From 1892 to 1954, the Statue of Liberty welcomed approximately 12 million immigrants to the United States as they entered New York Harbor enroute to the Ellis Island Immigration Station.Ellis Island opened on January 1, 1892, and 18-year-old Irish immigrant Annie Moore became the first person processed through the station.The Ellis Island Immigration Station closed in 1954.  On May 11, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson added the site to the Statue of Liberty National Monument.  After extensive fundraising and restoration, the first of several historic buildings reopened as part of the Ellis Island National Museum of Immigration in 1990.
View larger imageCopperThe Statue of Liberty is constructed of an iron frame sheathed in sheets of copper.  The weight of these sheets is approximately 62,000 pounds.In 2019, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) reported that the largest producers of copper ore were  Chile (5.6 million tons) and Peru (2.4 million tons).  The United States produced approximately 1.3 million tons that year.Data from the 2016 County Business Patterns Survey indicates that there were 47 copper mining establishments in the United States.  The USGS reports that most of the nation's copper ore came from deposits in Greenlee, Graham, and Yavapai Counties, AZ; Grant County, NM; and Salt Lake County, UT.**Visit *https://www.census.gov/history* every month for the latest Census History Home Page!**~~~~[an error occurred while processing this directive]  This symbol  indicates a link to a non-government web site.  Our linking to these sites does not constitute an endorsement of any products, services or the information found on them. Once you link to another site you are subject to the policies of the new site.CONNECT WITH US**********- Information Quality
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Measuring America's People, Places, and Economy
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