I first learned about Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi while reading a novel so I decided that I wanted to find out more about him. France gave the US the Statue of Liberty as a gift for 100 years of independence, though the gift was a decade late. Liberty was a political statement.
Name: Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi
Birth Date: August 1834 –October 1904
Job Functions: Sculptor
Fields: Art
Known For: Created the Statue of Liberty
As a child, Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi was very interested in art and often neglected other studies. He studied art under the tutelage of Ary Scheffer a prominent artist. Scheffer had traveled to the United States as a young man and stayed with French nobleman the Marquis de Lafayette who had fought beside George Washington during the Revolutionary War. While in the US, Scheffer also got the opportunity to meet Washington and Benjamin Franklin and became an enthusiastic supporter of America’s ideas on liberty and democracy. Scheffer regaled Bartholdi with his stories and in no time the young man became interested not only in sculpting but also in America.
Scheffer was instrumental in helping Bartholdi to decide on a career. Bartholdi remarked to Scheffer that he wanted to create statues large enough to stand out against the skyline. Bartholdi’s mentor recommended that he study with Eugene-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc, who had recently restored the Notre Dame Cathedral, and Henri Labrouste, an architect who was experimenting with constructing buildings using steel.
In 1855, Bartholdi entered the Universal Exposition an art competition. He created a statue of French General Jean Rapp, but the statue was too tall to be taken inside the building, so Bartholdi convinced judges to allow him to display his statue outside. The statue drew a lot of attention from the public, and many were talking about Bartholdi’s statue. His statue of the general was moved to Colmar and was inaugurated. Bartholdi was awarded the Legion of Honour for creating a statue of Admiral Armand Joseph Bruat, a native of Colmar.
When President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in1865, Bartholdi was saddened because he was a great admirer of the president. During his period of despair, he had dinner with his friend, French historian Éduoard-René Lefebvre de Laboulaye. Laboulaye had an idea for a statue that would represent a country where the power lay in the hands of the people instead of a king. At that time, France was governed by Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, a dictator who came into power in 1852 after a popular election. Bartholdi and Laboulaye conceived of the idea to give the United States a monument to commemorate the country’s first centennial as a free nation.
Bartholdi and Laboulaye wanted to give the United States a gift that was a symbol of friendship between the two countries when the French military aided American rebels during America’s War of Independence against the British. Bartholdi was very inspired and enthusiastic about this sculpting project, and wanted to create a monumental statue, but as fate would have it, he couldn’t immediately start the project.
In 1870, France and Prussia went to war and Bartholdi enlisted with the National Guard where he became a major. France lost the war and his hometown Colmar was incorporated into Germany. Bartholdi and other French were forbidden to cross the new border so he moved to Paris where he set up a studio. Bartholdi reopened discussions about the statue with Laboulaye who recommended that he travel to America first to see what it was like and get inspiration for the monument.
In 1871, Bartholdi set sail for the United States, and while he was on the voyage he tried to determine the type of statue he would create. As the ship entered the harbour, he noticed “a tiny island in New York harbor, just off the southern tip of Manhattan, called Bedloe’s Island that he thought would be the perfect place for the statue.” He thought that every ship that docked into the harbour would have an inspiring view of the statue. Bartholdi quickly drew his design in watercolour. “Liberty would be depicted as a proud lady raising a torch high above her head and holding a tablet with the date July 4, 1776. Around her head would be a crown of rays. Bartholdi named her Liberty Enlightening the World.”
Bartholdi visited artist John La Farge and created a small version of Liberty Enlightening the World. Laboulaye had provided Bartholdi with letters of introduction to meet prominent citizens across the United States. He met poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow who became a supporter. Bartholdi gave many talks across the US to garner support, and generate enthusiasm for the project. It was tough going but he was able to create a fundraising committee.
While designing Liberty Enlightening the World, Bartholdi soon realized that the statue would have to have a steel frame and a steel outer body. He conferred with Gustave Eiffel who was known for building steel framed bridges and later built the famed Eiffel Tower. Eiffel agreed to help. Bartholdi and Laboulaye raised funds to create the statue from a group of French liberals, and construction of the monument began in 1875.
He made several trips to the United States. In 1876, Bartholdi completed the statue’s arm and torch. He transported Liberty’s arm and torch to the US and had it on display at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition, where over 10 million visited the exhibition that year. For a small fee, visitors were allowed to climb inside Liberty’s arm to a balcony around the torch. They raised funds to help complete the statue.
Bartholdi launched a fundraising drive to build a pedestal for the 450,000-pound statue to stand on, and in 1877, American architect Richard Morris Hunt was hired to design and build the pedestal. However by 1883, Bartholdi stopped work on the statue because he received news from the US that fundraising effort wasn’t successful because they hadn’t raised enough funds to build Liberty. An art auction held on behalf of the fundraising committee turned things around. The auction featured paintings by prominent artist of the time and Jewish poet Emma Lazarus who composed a sonnet, “The New Colossus,” which was included in the auction to be awarded to the highest bidder.
“The New Colossus”
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lighting, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “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,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Bartholdi resumed work on Liberty, and nearly two decades later, in June 1884, he completed the statue in Paris, France. By March 1885 they ran out of funds to complete the pedestal, but Joseph Pulitzer stepped in and asked his readers for donations, and in turn their names would be printed in the newspaper. It was a successful drive and the pedestal was completed shortly after, and the Emma Lazarus’ poem was inscribed on a plaque and mounted inside the pedestal, meant as a welcome to immigrants to America.
The statue, Liberty Enlightening the World or The Statue of Liberty was dismantled into 350 pieces and shipped to America in 214 cases on the ship Isere which left France on May 22, 1885. The statue, which later became known as Lady Liberty, arrived on June 16 on Liberty Island (formerly Bedloe’s Island) in New York and placed on Ellis Island, the primary immigration port for European immigrants.
The pedestal and statue were assembled in 1886, ten years after the original target date. On October 28 of that year, President Grover Cleveland and his entire Cabinet accepted the Statue of Liberty from French dignitaries on behalf of the French people and dedicated her in an official ceremony. “The completed statue stands 111 feet high from head to foot and 151 feet high from top of the torch to the foot. From the foundation of the pedestal to the top of the torch is 305 feet. Lady Liberty's waist is thirty-five feet around, while the length of the right arm holding the torch is forty-two feet. The statue weighs 225 tons and is held together with 600,000 rivets. The pedestal it stands on weighs 28,000 tons.”
The Statue of Liberty was meant to be a political statement. “Bartholdi’s gigantic classical goddess carries a tablet representing the American Declaration of Independence. Yet she faces outward, stolid, strong, and unmovable as beams from her upraised lamp radiate across the sea.” The statue is also a statement against monarchy and slavery.
The Statue of Liberty was a significant piece of work for Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, but he has other works in the United States as well:
- Bartholdi Fountain in the Botanic Garden, Washington, DC
- Four angelic trumpeters at the First Baptist Church in Boston
- Statues of Lafayette and of Lafayette and Washington in New York City
Over the years Bartholdi’s masterpiece has been cleaned, improved and updated, and still stands proud and tall.
Lessons from Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi
- Most projects take longer to complete than first anticipated.
- Passion will take you through the difficult periods.
- For a project to succeed make sure that you get champions who will help your cause.
Works Cited/Referenced
Dictionary of American History
Authors and Artists for Young Adults, October 1, 2007
Gilded Age and Progressive Era: Primary Sources
Encyclopedia of World Biography
Immigration and Multiculturalism: Essential Primary Sources
Merriam Webster’s Biographical Dictionary
Lady Liberty Extends Her family Tree, The New York Times, June 10, 2011
US Immigration and Migration Reference Library
