Building a Statue of Liberty

Mention the warrior king Shivaji and most folks outside India draw a blank. But that could change if the Indian state of Maharashtra has its way. It wants to build a statue of Shivaji along the coast of Mumbai to rival the Statue of Liberty.

Standing more than 300 feet tall (like Lady Liberty), the statue would be built on a man-made island, complete with museum, library, and amphitheater. It would teach visitors about Shivaji, a revered 17th-century ruler whose resistance against the larger Mughal Empire is the stuff of legend.

It would also be a major tourist attraction--or so say the project's supporters. The project's critics counter that Maharashtra has far more important things to worry about, like providing adequate food and water for its people.

Liberty's Rough Welcome

We can't tell you whether the Indian "Statue of Liberty" is a good idea or not. But we can tell you something most folks forget: Lady Liberty herself had a pretty rough welcome.

It's true. The story of the Statue of Liberty is the story of a colossal sculpture that nearly didn't happen, a story of surrogate patriotism and love of liberty that originated in France and found its place in the American dream. And it's a story that many 19th-century Americans didn't find compelling at all. Here's how the story goes.

French Idea

In 1865, two Frenchmen, statesman Edouard de Laboulaye and sculptor Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi, conceived the idea of creating a magnificent statue to present to the people of the United States as a celebration of the American Declaration of Independence and as a reminder that there were still many in France who cherished liberty. France had long since lapsed from a republic to the autocratic rule of Napoleon III, but its republican patriots remained determined.

For Bartholdi, the project's mission was clear and personal: to "glorify the Republic and liberty over there, in the hope that someday I will find it again here." When he traveled to the United States in 1871, his artistic vision was instant, committed to paper as his ship sailed in. His plan: a colossal Lady Liberty standing in New York Harbor. He called it "Liberty Enlightening the World." Most Americans called it pointless.

French Effort

Upon his return to France, Bartholdi refined his vision using small clay models. He chose to work with lightweight copper, rather than bronze or stone, because it was better suited for disassembly and transport. Eventually, Bartholdi teamed with Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel, a French engineer known for innovative work in metal construction. (Eiffel, of course, would go on to design the famous Eiffel Tower, which earned him the nickname "the magician of iron.")

Eiffel created an elaborate skeleton of iron supports upon which Bartholdi's artisan-hammered copper skin would rest. The entire sculpture was fully erected in Paris by 1884, where the 151-foot lady towered over buildings along grand boulevards. Her seven-spiked crown symbolized the rays of liberty lighting the seven seas and seven continents of the world. Her tablet was inscribed "July 4, 1776."

American Immigrants

The French people loved it. Yet the American Committee on the Statue of Liberty was nearly dormant, with little money or support. American architect Richard Morris Hunt had been creating a pedestal since 1883, but work at a quarry to supply granite ceased in 1884 due to lack of funds. When Hunt sought money from his wealthy clientele, they refused. In 1885, Bartholdi had the statue disassembled and shipped to the United States, where it sat, unpacked, in boxes.

Finally, a disgusted Joseph Pulitzer, publisher of the New York World and an immigrant from Hungary, used his paper to enlist help from the working class. In five months' time, Pulitzer managed to raise $100,000 in contributions--a dollar, a dime, a penny at a time.

Work resumed on a 154-foot pedestal, and on October 28, 1886, President Grover Cleveland dedicated "Liberty Enlightening the World"--the Statue of Liberty--amid great, if belated, fanfare. In 1903, Emma Lazarus's now-famous poem "The New Colossus" ("Give me your tired, your poor, / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free . . .") was engraved into a plaque at the pedestal's entrance, a clarion call to the millions of immigrants who would pass by, hungry for freedom.