What is the Statue of Liberty?

The Statue of Liberty is a 305-foot copper statue on Liberty Island in New York Harbor, dedicated on October 28, 1886, that has served as an iconic symbol of freedom, democracy, and welcome to immigrants arriving in the United States for nearly 140 years. The statue's official name is Liberty Enlightening the World (La Liberté éclairant le monde). It depicts a robed female figure representing Libertas, the Roman goddess of liberty, holding a torch above her head in her right hand and a tablet inscribed with the date "JULY IV MDCCLXXVI" (July 4, 1776) in her left hand, with broken chains at her feet symbolizing the abolition of slavery.

The statue was a gift from the people of France to the United States to commemorate the centennial of American independence and to celebrate the friendship between the two nations forged during the American Revolution. The idea originated in 1865 with French jurist Edouard de Laboulaye, who wanted to honor American democracy and the recent abolition of slavery in the United States. French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi designed the statue, beginning serious work in 1875, and Gustave Eiffel (the engineer who later built the Eiffel Tower) designed the iron and steel internal framework that supports the copper skin. The face is reportedly modeled on Bartholdi's mother.

The pedestal was funded through American donations, with significant fundraising help from publisher Joseph Pulitzer through his New York World newspaper, which raised about 100,000 dollars in small donations from 120,000 contributors. American architect Richard Morris Hunt designed the granite pedestal, which is itself 89 feet tall. The statue was constructed in France between 1875 and 1884, dismantled into 350 pieces, packed in 214 crates, and shipped aboard the French naval vessel Isère, arriving in New York Harbor on June 17, 1885. Reassembly on Bedloe's Island (renamed Liberty Island in 1956) took about a year. President Grover Cleveland dedicated the statue on October 28, 1886.

Total height from ground to torch tip is 305 feet 1 inch. The statue weighs about 450,000 pounds. The interior includes a stairway that visitors can climb to a small observation area in the crown, although access to the torch was closed permanently in 1916 after damage from an explosion at Black Tom Island during World War I.

Emma Lazarus's famous sonnet "The New Colossus" written in 1883 was added to the pedestal in 1903 with the lines "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." Although not part of the original conception, the poem became inseparable from the statue's meaning as a symbol of American welcome to immigrants. The statue was a National Monument from 1924 and became part of the Statue of Liberty National Monument that also includes Ellis Island. About 4 million people visit each year.