What is the true story of the Statue of Liberty?

In the 1870s, French abolitionist Édouard de Laboulaye joined forces with sculptor Frédéric Bartholdi and renowned engineer Gustave Eiffel to dream up a monumental gift for the United States. The statue would be a symbol of friendship between the two nations, and a celebration of the end of slavery.



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The first sketch of New York's Statue of Liberty by architect Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi was first intended to represent an “Egyptian peasant in Muslim garments.” In his early designs, Bartholdi called the sculpture “Egypt Carrying the Light to Asia.” However, Egyptian officials rejected the statue as too expensive, ...

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25 Facts to Celebrate the Statue of Liberty
  • The statue's full name is Liberty Enlightening the World.
  • It was a gift from France given to America in 1886.
  • The robed female figure represents Libertas, the Roman goddess of freedom.
  • The statue measures 93 meters and weighs 204 metric tons.


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A portrait of Auguste Bartholdi. The sculptor behind the Statue of Liberty, Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, was born in 1834 in Colmar, France in the Alsace region on the border of Germany.

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An illustration of the presentation of the Statue to the U.S. Minister Levi Parsons Morton in Paris on July 4, 1881. The Statue of Liberty was a gift from the French people commemorating the alliance of France and the United States during the American Revolution.

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Statue of Liberty inspiration: The Roman Goddess Libertas In the late 1800s, one of the most significant female icons in American culture was the Roman goddess Libertas, a female figure clad in robes. In ancient Rome, she was worshipped as the goddess of freedom, particularly amongst slaves.

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The statue's name derives from the Goddess it represents; Libertas, a Roman deity personifying freedom. Libertas appears on Roman coins from the period of Julius Caesar's assassination, supporting the Republic.

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The statue, which was meant to stand at the northern entrance to the Suez Canal, was anticipated as a grand project symbolizing the country's burgeoning industrial development, steps towards Europeanization and social advances which Bartholdi pitched to the Egyptian government, especially Khedive Ismail.

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10 Fun Facts about the Statue of Liberty
  • Her spiky hat is symbolic.
  • She is actually French.
  • The statue served as a lighthouse.
  • Her head isn't on properly!
  • Nobody is allowed in the torch.
  • Lightning doesn't strike twice, does it?
  • She escaped her chains.
  • Why is she green?


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Answer and Explanation: There are two genuine statues and several lesser versions of the Statue of Liberty. The original and most famous is the one located on Liberty Island, a gift from the French to America. The second is located in Paris, France, and was a reciprocal gift from the United States in 1889.

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The truss in statue's right shoulder had seriously weakened and was in danger of collapse. And almost half of the iron armature that supports the copper skin had corroded, in part because the statue had become, in effect, a giant battery.

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The Statue of Liberty holds a torch and a tablet. The tablet has the date of the American Declaration of Independence inscribed in Roman numerals, JULY IV MDCCLXXVI.

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The Statue of Liberty is just one of the iconic landmarks in New York City. It's made of copper, which has oxidised naturally to form a green patina coating which actually protects the copper underneath. It took about 20 years for the Statue of Liberty to change from copper coloured to green!

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But did you know she wasn't always that color? When France gifted Lady Liberty to the U.S., she was a 305-foot statue with reddish-brown copper skin. Her color change is thanks to about 30 years' worth of chemistry in the air of New York City harbor.

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The copper statue, officially unveiled on October 28, 1886, took four months to assemble and 20 years to transform from its original copper hue into its iconic green through a process called patination. (Fast facts about the Statue of Liberty from National Geographic Kids.)

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The Eiffel Tower was a gift from the U.S. During the American Revolution, France provided support to the United States. The Statue of Liberty was gifted to commemorate this alliance. However, the Eiffel Tower wasn't a reciprocal gift, even though the two monuments were created in a similar time period.

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With 31 tons of copper and 125 tons of steel, the scrap value of the Statue of Liberty comes in at $227,610, far below two of the most expensive statues in the world. But that's what happens when you use millions worth of gold and bronze.

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