Building the Statue of Liberty: Liberty Enlightens the World
A powerful international symbol of opportunity, freedom, and political liberty, how did the Statue of Liberty first achieve its iconic status?
In the early decades of the 19th century, as America’s colonial and revolutionary heroes were passing away, Americans began to write histories of the young Republic. Joining these words were powerful images of America’s past like Plymouth Rock, the allegorical figure of Columbia, and the Liberty Bell. At the time of the Civil War, Thomas Crawford’s sculpture Freedom Triumphant in War and Peace, as it was then called, was set atop the dome of the Capitol in Washington.
Visual Americana, whether as illustrations, prints, engravings, or graphic designs, took up these these powerful symbols. It transformed them into icons, but they remained rooted in our own history, our own past.
Building a Statue of Liberty. What are the first printed images of “Lady Liberty” to enter the iconography of America? First, events in France got the ball rolling…
Americans, however, are not people of the past! We are people of frontiers, new inventions, travel—people of the future. Immigrants flocked to America attracted by the mere hope of opportunity. America needed a new, international, “rock-star-famous” kind of symbol and we sure got one thanks to French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi.
Bartholdi’s colossal sculpture, Liberty Enlightening the World, is better known to us as the Statue of Liberty. It was formally dedicated in New York City’s harbor on October 28, 1886. However, it was born as an icon not in copper, iron, and steel, but first on paper! Bartholdi patented his design for the Statue of Liberty on February 18, 1879. The patent includes a drawing of the statue as we know it.
Before this, however, in 1875, at least two other images of this same familiar image of the Statue of Liberty appeared in print. Here they are:
Among the items in this unique collection, a rare historical broadside and subscription card were published in 1875 by the Union Franco-Américaine.
These rare items—an illustrated broadside, a photographically-illustrated subscription card, a lottery ticket, a color print—were solicitations for money to erect the Statue of Liberty. Each depict the statue on its familiar pedestal on Bedloe’s Island in New York City’s harbor. Although Bartholdi favored it, Bedloe’s Island had not even then been formally selected as the site for the completed monument.
These images are literally foundational.
The two images of the statue on the broadside and on the card are different from each other. Interestingly, the image on the card has been reproduced photographically and may well have been taken directly from the artist’s original drawing. Together, these two images may well depict the earliest known printed views of the Statue of Liberty. This is the birth of an icon.
George Washington, already himself an American icon, surmounts this rare image of the Statue of Liberty.
An honorary American citizen, Lafayette remains a popular symbol of Franco-American friendship.
The Comte de Rochambeau, another French hero of the American Revolution, has recently been recognized.
The use of actual photographs as illustrations on ephemera is unusual. Ironically, subscription cards like this typically survive only when they have not been used. If it had been returned with a contribution, it would likely have been recorded and then discarded.
A closer look. The visual iconography of New York City includes this rare 1875 photographic image of a drawing of the Statue of Liberty. Note that Lady Liberty is not yet holding her tablet inscribed July IV MDCCLXXVI [July 4, 1776].
Rhe Union Franco-Américaine sold lottery tickets —such as this example— to raise 300,000 francs to complete the Statue of Liberty. Lotteries were often used in 18th century and 19th century America to finance schools, canals, bridges, and even churches.
This color print was issued as a souvenir to visitors to the Paris workshop of Gaget-Gauthier et Cie. where Frédéric Auguste Barthholdi’s Statue of Liberty was fabricated. The 1883 print, entitled Monument Commémoratif du Centième Anniversaire de l’Indépendance des États-Unis, announces the American Revolutionary spirit of liberty offered to the world. Other renderings followed. Bartholdi’s 1879 patent drawing, for example.
These rare, foundational documents of the iconic Statue of Liberty rank high on the list of America’s visual iconography; as firm a footing and gravitas as the iconography of Plymouth Rock and the Liberty Bell.
Through paper, ink, and photography, they served as the blueprints and the encouraging and hopeful visual medium to bring forth the reality, a statue of Liberty.