Photographed from the ferry and edited to make it look as if it was an older painting instead of a modern photograph. This image is approximatly the same view as the view of the millions of immigrants who saw Lady Liberty as a symbol of opportunity and prosperity in the new world. They followed the words of Abraham Lincoln and immigrated to the United States to give their lives a "New Birth of Freedom."
This symbol has sparked countless American stories of entrepreneurship, hardship, overcoming unbearable obstacles, determinition to forge a better life then what they had elsewhere, and a connection to this new experiment known as the United States of America.
She is the gift that keeps on giving and continues to remind us Americans of our past, present, and future. She is the Mother of all Exciles.
The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus.
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 lightning, 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!”
The poem above was added to the pedastal in 1903 in memory of Emma Lazuras who wrote the poem in the 1880's as part of Joseph Pulitzer's fundraising campaign for the construction of the pedastal. Regular everday Americans donated whatever they could for the construction of the pedastal. Every donator from the schoolchild who mailed in a nickel to the multi millionaire who donated $10,000 got their name published in Joseph Pulitzer's newspaper.
The same kind of fundraising campaign occured in Paris and France for the construction of the statue. Parisians of all economic levels donated a franc or lots of francs for her construction. She is a gift from the people of France paid for by the people of France and put on a pedostal by the people of the United States of America.
She is the artistic embodiment of the words of the former French Ambassador Gourvernor Morris who coined the phrase "We the People" in our constitution.
Photographer: Dylan Carpowich