Enlightening the World

Sabina Khan Yasmin

Description

Conceived in the aftermath of the American Civil War and the grief that swept France over the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, the Statue of Liberty has been a potent symbol of the nation's highest ideals since it was unveiled in 1886. Dramatically situated on Bedloe's Island (now Liberty Island) in the harbor of New York City, the statue has served as a reminder for generations of immigrants of America's long tradition as an asylum for the poor and the persecuted. Although it is among the most famous sculptures in the world, the story of its creation is little known.In Enlightening the World, Yasmin Sabina Khan provides a fascinating new account of the design of the statue and the lives of the people who created it, along with the tumultuous events in France and the United States that influenced them. Khan's narrative begins on the battlefields of Gettysburg, where Lincoln framed the Civil War as a conflict testing whether a nation "conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal... can long endure." People around the world agreed with Lincoln that this question-and the fate of the Union itself-affected the "whole family of man." Inspired by the Union's victory and stunned by Lincoln's death, Edouard-Rene Lefebvre de Laboulaye, a legal scholar and noted proponent of friendship between his native France and the United States, conceived of a monument to liberty and the exemplary form of government established by the young nation. For Laboulaye and all of France, the statue would be called La Liberte Eclairant le Monde-Liberty Enlightening the World.Following the statue's twenty-year journey from concept to construction, Khan reveals in brilliant detail the intersecting lives that led to the realization of Laboulaye's dream: the Marquis de Lafayette; Alexis de Tocqueville; the sculptor Auguste Bartholdi, whose commitment to liberty and self-government was heightened by his experience of the Franco-Prussian War; the architect Richard Morris Hunt, the first American to study architecture at the prestigious Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris; and the engineer Gustave Eiffel, who pushed the limits for large-scale metal construction. Also here are the contributions of such figures as Senators Charles Sumner and Carl Schurz, the artist John La Farge, the poet Emma Lazarus, and the publisher Joseph Pulitzer. While exploring the creation of the statue, Khan points to possible sources-several previously unexamined-for the design. She links the statue's crown of rays with Benjamin Franklin's image of the rising sun and makes a clear connection between the broken chain under Lady Liberty's foot and the abolition of slavery. Through the rich story of this remarkable national monument, Enlightening the World celebrates both a work of human accomplishment and the vitality of liberty.

Sujets

• Histoire
• USA
• United States of America
• History of the Americas
• History of Europe
• États-Unis
• France

Informations

• Publié par: Cornell University Press
• Date de parution: 15 juin 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780801460210
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Enlightening the World

Enlightening the World

the creation of the statue of liberty

Yasmin Sabina Khan

Cornell University Press

Ithaca and London

Copyright © 2010 by Yasmin Sabina Khan

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850.

First published 2010 by Cornell University Press Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Khan, Yasmin Sabina. Enlightening the world : the creation of the Statue of Liberty / Yasmin Sabina Khan. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8014-4851-5 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Statue of Liberty (New York, N.Y.)—History. 2. Monuments— New York (State)—New York—Design and construction. 3. Bartholdi, Frédéric Auguste, 1834–1904. 4. New York (N.Y.)—Buildings, structures, etc.—History. 5. United States—Relations—France. 6. France— Relations—United States. I. Title. F128.64.L6K53 2010 974.71—dc22 2009035711

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Cloth printing

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Contents

Acknowledgmentsvii Introduction 1 1∙8The Idea 2∙17A Champion of Liberty 3∙Bonds of Friendship 33 4∙47The French Sculptor 5∙Bartholdi’s Tour of America and the American Architect 61 6∙Washington, D.C., as a National Symbol 82 7∙Bartholdi’s Design 99 8∙The Statue Takes Shape 117 9∙133The American Committee and the French Engineers 10∙147Hunt Designs a Pedestal 11∙Fundraising and a Visionary Sonnet 159 12∙The Unveiling 176 Notes187 Bibliography213 Index225

Acknowledgments

Half a year before his death Allan Temko recommended that I read his book. I already hadNotre Dame of Parison my bookshelf, so I started it immediately. I was thinking much about liberty at the time, both grateful for a system of government based on respect for individual liberty and worried that our unique inheritance might, out of fear, be diminished by our own government. Allan Temko’s sensitive book about how and why Notre Dame was built encouraged me to explore a monument as meaningful to our na- tion as Notre Dame is to France, and as universally cherished. Thus began my work on this book. A book of course is never the work of an individual, and many people have supported me in various ways over the years as I thought about and prepared this text. Nicole Fronteau, Sergio Coelho, and Beatriz Lienhard-Fernandez helped with translations, and my brother Martin Reifschneider with the illustrations. Kath- leen Coleman and Maria Luisa Mansfield offered valuable sug- gestions on individual chapters of the manuscript as it developed; Sr. Virginia Daniels, Carmella Yager, Msgr. Dennis Sheehan, Lili- ane Chase, Adam Chase, and Zillur R. and Tanjina Khan also read portions of the text. John Mansfield, Arlene Polonsky, Marlies Mueller, Beatriz Espinosa de Fernandez, and Chin-Chin Yeh gen- erously offered their thoughts and advice on the full manuscript,

viii∙Acknowledgments

and two anonymous readers shared their knowledge of the topic and the literature on the statue. A number of people at libraries, museums, and collections greatly assisted my research, including Marie-Sophie Corcy at the Conservatoire national des arts et métiers near Paris, Françoise Gademann and Régis Hueber at the Musée Bartholdi, the photographer Christian Kempf in Colmar, Sherry Birk and Mari Nakahara at the Richard Morris Hunt Col- lection of the American Architectural Foundation in Washington, D.C., Barbara Wolanin and Jennifer Pullara Blancato at the Of- fice of the Architect of the Capitol, Catharina Slautterback at the Boston Athenaeum, and David Cassedy of the Union League of Philadelphia. Diane Windham Shaw at Lafayette College, Alan Hoffman, and other admirers of the Marquis de Lafayette helped me appreciate the involvement of France in the American War for Independence; many others clarified my thoughts by discussing the statue and my ideas for the book. I sincerely thank everyone who shared in some way in this project. Michael J. McGandy, my editor at Cornell University Press, worked with me for close to a year to shape the manuscript, and his background and guidance are reflected in this text. With his help I have been better able to express my wonder at the statue’s story and at how the inspired efforts of individuals can affect the course of history. My husband, Stephen D. Byron, encouraged me to pursue my idea for a book when it was yet a vague concept. Aware of the in- tense research and focus that a book demands, he supported me as this idea began to take form and assisted me in innumerable ways, from finding sources to traveling to France to visit collections. I am thankful for his companionship and count on his support for all of my efforts.

INTRODUCTION

Five days before the official unveiling of the Statue of Liberty on October 28, 1886, workmen riveted the last sculpted sheet of thin copper into position. With the placement of this copper sheet at the heel of the statue, a twenty-one-year journey from conception to completion came to a close. Standing high on her pedestal, the statue rose 305 feet 11 inches (94 m) above mean low water level, higher than the piers of the Brooklyn Bridge and the office towers of New York. The entire copper skin and iron support frame had arrived from France in pieces the previous year, packed in over two hundred large wooden crates. Preassembled in Paris to ensure it would be complete and ready for erection in its permanent setting, the structure had taken nearly three years to construct. Starting with the sculptor’s four-foot-high (1.2 m) terra-cotta model, plas- ter models progressively enlarged the design until the statue reached 151 feet 1 inch (46 m). Three hundred and ten sheets of copper were hammered into shape, forming the sculptural skin of the fig- ure, and fastened to a truss tower designed to support this colos- sal work of art. The finished statue remained standing in the 17th arrondissement in Paris for over half a year as preparations were made for her arrival at Bedloe’s Island (today Liberty Island) in New York Harbor. Completion of this record-setting monument in 1886 repre-