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Known as Lady Liberty, the Statue of Liberty Enlightening the World was a gift from the people of France to the people of the United States to recognize the friendship established during the American Revolution. Since then, she has become a universal symbol of freedom and democracy.
The statue's sculptor, Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi, is said to have modeled Lady Liberty's face after that of his own mother, Charlotte. Bartholdi also incorporated many symbolic features to his colossus, including 25 windows in the crown to represent gemstones found on the earth and the heaven's rays shining over the world. The seven rays of the statue's crown represent the seven seas and continents of the world. And, the tablet that Lady Liberty holds in her left hand reads (in Roman numerals) "July 4th, 1776" - the date of American independence.
The statue was so large that Bartholdi retained Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel, who designed the Eiffel Tower, to help him address structural issues, and to design the massive iron pylon and secondary skeletal framework that allows the statue's copper "skin" to move independently yet remain upright.
Upon completion, the French ship Isere transported the Statue of Liberty's 300 copper pieces, which were packed in 214 crates, to America. Although the ship nearly sank in rough seas, it arrived in New York on June 17, 1885. However, the Statue's parts remained unassembled for nearly a year until 1886 when the pedestal was completed on the12-acre Liberty Island, then known as Bedloe's Island.
In 1965, Ellis Island, through which thousands of immigrants passed as they entered America, became part of the Statue of Liberty National Monument. Through extensive restoration, its main building opened over a quarter century later on Sept. 10, 1990, as a national museum of immigration. Ellis Island is federal property partly within the territorial jurisdiction of the both the states of New York and New Jersey.
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