Americana - Statue of Liberty - Half dressed 1883 Poster

Colorized photo from 1883 Original title: Assemblage of the Statue of Liberty Location: Paris, France This is the Statue of Liberty, and she is topless. Just skin and bones at this point. Lady Liberty was originally going to be installed in Egypt, at the front of the Suez Canal, but they didn't want it, they said try America. The statue in large was a crowd funding project, each country or state donated something to make it happen. A Frenchman by the name of Edouard de Laboulaye, came up with an idea to help celebrate America after the Civil War. Ten years after he came up with the idea, Frederic Auguste Bartholdi was commissioned to build it. He created this giant statue modeled after his mother. The pedestal on the American side was funded by people that donated to the cause. A person named Joseph Pulitzer, owned a newspaper and announced that anyone that would like to donate to this, I will put your name in the paper. And it worked well, he sold more papers, and they got money. After a while though, people became bored of donating. Boston started donating, because they wanted the statue, when NY heard about this, they started it up again and it became a sort of competition. New York won, and they managed to get her over there. But the pedestal was too narrow at the base, and as narrow as that scaffolding is, it didn't fit. It was explained that people had to drop down on ropes and install pieces that way. Some how no one was killed. Bartholdi didn't really get money for making it, other than getting donations of copper and money for the supplies. He did however make money making replica's (smaller ones), and other gifts. For a while he rented out the torch at a worlds fair in Philadelphia, to sell people on the idea of the statue and to earn extra cash so he can build the face.