Arts by Dylan: Statue of Liberty in Paris Canvas

Photographer: Albert Fernique, Paris France, 1883

Sculpter: Frederic Auguste Bartholdi

The Statue of Liberty was a gift to the United States of America by France.  All the United States of America had to do was design and build a pedestal for her to stand on. The cost for the pedestal was about $200,000 or in today's money about 6 million dollars. The cost for the construction of the statue was covered by regular everday French men and woman who donated small sums of money for her creation. totalling about $250,000.

The Fundraising committee raised about half the cost of the pedestol. The US Congress at the time refused to cover the other half so the Committee asked average Americans for small donations.  Their attempt to ask Chicagoans and Californians for financial assistance to build a pedestal for a statue in New Jersey for New Yorkers was not going well. San Francisco as well as Boston and Philadelphia offered to cover the cost of the pedestal only if the statue could be in their city.  San Francisco wanted it to be located where the Golden Gate Bridge now stands. 

The committee was failing in their fundraising efforts and threatened to give the Statue of Liberty back to France.  That is when the journalist Joseph Pullitzer stepped in and sold small models of the statue of liberty to help fundraise.  He also published opinion articles and held events asking the public for donations. He was successful in this campaign and recieved over 125,000 donations from average Americans from all over the country.  He published every donor's name in his paper it did not matter if it was a dime sent in from a school child in Indiana or a $2,000 donation from a millionair in New York City. 

She has looked Ever Upward over New York City ever since. A shining light to immigrants and Americans alike and a symbol of opportunity and prosperity in the Golden lands of the USA.