Why did France give us a Statue of Liberty?

You're listening to Part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. Guess what Will?

What's that Mango?

Did you know that Ellie the Elephant, who is the mascot of the WNBA team here at the New York Liberty, Did you know she has two stylists?

Two stylists.

I'm definitely familiar with Ellie the Elephant, and it has been so much fun to see how much buzz she's.

Gotten over the past year or so.

But I did not think about a mascot needing a stylist.

Well, you know, Ellie isn't just any old mascot. She twerks, she goes to childish Gambino concerts, and she is a fashion trendsetter. And in the twenty twenty four WNBA season, she was spotted carrying a four hundred and twenty dollars person She's even been featured in Vogue for her style.

I don't know, it makes me feel sort of sorry for mister Mett. He just seems pretty pretty normcore at this point. But I can't say that I were member seeing Ellie like way back when, Like how long has she actually been representing the Liberty?

Yeah, I was actually wondering about this too. Apparently she only debuted in twenty twenty one, but she has obviously made quite an impression, and it makes sense considering she's kind of a tribute to so much New York history, Like, like, what the fact that she's an elephant? For one, I'm not sure if you remember this, but P. T. Barnum brought twenty one elephants and seventeen camels over the Brooklyn Bridge in eighteen eighty four, and that was to help

Hey their podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as always, I'm here with my good friend Mangesh hot Ticketter and sitting somewhere behind that big booth, that's our pal and producer Dylan.

Now he looks like he's.

Getting warm from carrying that big torch over his head, don't you think, Mango.

I don't know why he's got a torch in there. He's always complaining that we're lighting scented candles and birthday aches around his equipment, and this.

Doesn't really seem fair, It really doesn't. But I hope that he finds a big bucket of water or fire exting. We're sure to put that out because we've got an episode record here, but let's get to it. So, Mango, you obviously live in New York City, and I'm curious how many times have you actually visited the Statue of Liberty.

I mean so many times. I ended up going so many times that I decided to create like a different tour of weird things to take people to just so I didn't have to go to the Statue of Liberty. So there was a nap room in the Empire State building for a while, there was a secret museum and an elevator shaft. There's a jewelry store that sells bond

Yeah, I get that.

It's definitely one of those things that I think you appreciate it more with time and the more you just think about the fact that this giant statue exists.

There, like right in the middle of the water.

I noticed it every time I fly in, Like every time, for whatever reason, I always want to try to catch a quick glimpse of it, just because it's such a remarkable thing. But all right, well, why don't you kick off the story for us, So tell us, let's let's go back to the beginning. Tell us who came up with the idea of putting up a giant statue in the New York Harbor?

Right? So the whole thing began in eighteen sixty five at a dinner party at the house of Eduard de la Boulie, and he had a bunch of politicians and intellectuals over they were chatting about politics and current events, and the discussion kind of moved into the topic of the United States. And to be clear, this probably wasn't totally random, considering that la Boulie was the author of a three volume history of the US right. So he's

Yeah, I mean, it is a touching tribute. And I actually had not heard that story before but it's also a little bit weird, right, like, we're sorry your husband was assassinated, but you know what, here's a gold medal from our country.

Yeah, I mean, I guess it's better than a silver or bronze. But back to this dinner party, this group of intellectuals was talking about how impressed they were that the US had persevered through these events, right, and it was obviously linked to current events there. France too, at the time, was dealing with issues of abolition, and many of these partygoers were part of the efforts to abolish slavery in France's African colonies. And also France had fairly recently had a whop of their own.

You know, honestly, it's so hard for me to keep track of French revolts, Like I did not realize that one happened in the eighteen sixties.

Yeah, so this one actually happened in eighteen fifty one. But Napoleon the Third, who was Napoleon Bonaparte's nephew, refused to leave the office of the president when he was supposed to, and he declared himself Emperor France. So at this dinner party, the group was like, how is this baby country keeping it together while we're still struggling.

Mm hmm. I can imagine, you know, like lots of French dinner parties in the eighteen sixties where this was being discussed, and just trying to picture all of this discussion. But how is it that this one led to the building of a massive statue. That's what's still so strange to me.

Yeah. So there was also a sculptor in attendance there. His name was Frederic Auguste Bartoldi, and Bartoldi became famous in the eighteen fifties for a statue of a French general named gene Rapp and La Boulie was kind of spitballing at his party, and so he said, well, France and the US are great friends, we supported the American Revolution and everything. What if there was a statue for that?

And then they actually did it. I mean, that's what's so amazing about this whole thing. They built the statue, We've covered it, so it's time for the fact off, right.

Not exactly so, after the party ended, Bartoldi started working on plans for a different idea he had. He had this vision of a statue slash lighthouse for Egypt. It was going to sit at the entrance of the Suez Canal. He titled it Egypt carrying the Light to Asia. And if you squint at his painting of what this would look like, you could kind of mistake it for Lady Liberty. It's a woman on a pedestal holding a torch. She's dressed in different garb, and she's raising her other hand.

Yeah, I mean it's tough when your whole thing is making massive statues and putting them in very prominent places, you do have to get used to some rejection in the process.

Yeah, And that might be especially true for Bartoldi, who actually should be noted that he had the most supportive mom any artist could dream of. After his dad died when Bartoldi was a young child, his mom moved him and his brother from the city of Colmar, which is closer to that i'll says, Lorraine region, to Paris, and as he got more and more into drawing and sculpture, his mom totally supported his art career, not just by

Yeah, I mean that makes a lot of sense. So after the Egyptian government rejects Bartoldi, does he start thinking about the United States again or what?

Well, first he goes off and fights in the Franco Prussian War, and then in eighteen seventy one, after that war ends, le Boulier and Bartoldi meet back up and get refocused on this statue idea. The problem was they still don't have any idea who would pay for it, which is something I know you looked into. But before we talk about that, let's take a quick break.

Welcome back, to Part Time Genius, where we're talking about the Statue of Liberty, and it's becoming clear that this thing isn't quite as simple as just a gift from the French government to the United States.

No, it's more like a couple of French civilians thought it would be a cool idea because they liked history and art and saw the US from across the bar and liked its five. I then decide to send it a statue. But uh, let's talk fundraising.

All right.

So Leabulia and BARTHOLDI needed to figure out if there were statue fundraising opportunities in the US. Plus Lbulier thought it would be a good idea for BARTOLDI to spend some time there for the statue brainstorming, because they still hadn't finished what this statue could look like. So Bartoldi takes a small clay model he's made and he crosses the Atlantic. Now this was June of eighteen seventy one.

I love that.

But despite the inspiring size of the peas Bartholdi still had some concerns. So he thought the biggest barrier to his statue project would be quote, the American character, which is hardly open.

To things of the imagination. It's pretty big dig there.

But also the English wasn't great, so this whole thing was going to be a challenge from the very beginning.

Yeah, that sounds particularly hard if you don't speak the language. So how did Bartoldi adapt to our would you say, unimaginative way?

Exactly?

Well, he quickly learned that he couldn't pitch the statue to people as a joint project between France and the US. He wasn't going to get much traction if he did that. So he did some quick thinking and he rebranded it as a quote, commemorative monument for eighteen seventy six, acting like France was already on board to pay for this piece, and that all the Americans had to do was sit back and you know, maybe chip in a little for the pedestal or something.

Which is obviously stretching the truth a little bit there.

It definitely was.

I mean, in reality, it was just a few men who even knew about the statue. No money had been set aside for it, and BARTOLDI had been expecting that Americans would pay for half the thing. In the end, he spends four months in the US. He makes his way through New England, then crosses the country to California and returns all the way back to the East Coast.

I mean, that's kind of a lot of travel for that time, right, like going coast to coast.

I thought the same thing. But it's also crazy to see who he meets along the way, Like he sits down with some really heavy hitters, including President Ulysses S.

Grant in New Jersey.

In Salt Lake City, he meets Brigham Young and in all his meeting people in fact finding, that's how he lands on the theme of his statue, which is, drum roll, please liberty.

I'm not like a famous sculptor or anything, but I feel like I could have gotten there without a four month brainstorming vacation through the US.

I don't know, Mango, sometimes you got to do all those things to come up with that. But it wasn't as anticlimactic as it might sound like. Liberty was actually hot button term at the time. It didn't just mean freedom to everyone. A lot of people associated the idea with revolutions and violence, but Bartholdi and Laboulie decided to show a different side of liberty. The statue would be lighting the way to freedom in a peaceful, lawful way.

So speaking of the connection between the Statue of Liberty and slavery, I think people sometimes forget that she has shackles at her feet, and it is interesting to read about the different takes on the statue and how explicitly anti slavery people believed it to be. So you know, as we mentioned earlier, people at Libulia's party were abolitionists, including Libulia himself. But Bartoldi he was actually aiming to

Oh that's funny, all right, Well let's just get back to the fundraiser for just a second. Because you know, as you know, art can't be rushed. So it took a few years for Bartoldi to make a bigger model out of Terra Cotta for quote liberty and lightning the world, And finally in eighteen seventy five they were ready to start fundraising. So Laboulia and his liberal friends began reaching

I mean, I feel like if these people only knew how historically significant their donations would be, Like the statue of Liberty has a critical role in Cloverfield and Independence Day, Batman Forever.

And Batman forever, Like that alone, you think people would understand but also things like Mad magazine covers. Anyway, they start working on the statue and Bartoldi gets in touch with Alexander Gustav Eiffel, who of course would go on to design the Eiffel Tower later in his career, but at this point he's more famous for designing bridges. They also team up with another important artist and engineer, Eugene Violette LeDuc to create the statue skeleton, which is made of iron pylon.

I kind of love how this story is like a who's who of the eighteen hundreds. We have presidents, religious leaders, and now the creator of the Eiffel Tower. Yes, it's amazing.

It's pretty wild seeing it all come together, and their contributions are pretty significant, which we'll talk about a little bit later. But even with all of these famous friends, Bartoldi and Laboulie still needed more money. They knew they needed Americans to pay for the statue's granite pedestal. It would cost two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, which is over six million dollars in today's terms, and they hadn't

And any idea why they start with the arm, like instead of the face.

Well, they had some rationale behind it, like if they couldn't raise enough money, it simply would have been a standalone piece.

I mean, I guess that makes sense. But did this publicity start work?

Actually, it got a lot of people excited, and when you hear about it, the World's Fair of that time is kind of amazing. So over the course of that summer in eighteen seventy six, ten million people from over thirty countries visited the exhibits, and Linda wrote about this for mental flaws.

As you mentioned.

Before, the exhibits featured quote, working elevators, electric lights, and even a live walrus, a live walrus maybe, And apparently the programming changed daily, and of course this giant arm with a torch that we talked about. But you know, the funny thing is that most people there didn't realize this was a fundraising gimmick or even a celebration of liberty or whatever it was. They just thought it was a way to get a view of surrounding counties, so

Which sounds a little desperate, but I guess that's because he was right.

Absolutely.

And the press commented on this, and a September eighteen seventy six article The New York Times wrote quote, had the French sculptor honestly intended to complete the Statue of Liberty, he would have begun at its foundation. From present appearances, we have now all of the statue that we have, unless we are willing to pay the cost of finishing it. And it is more than doubtful if the American public

That's kind of a weird way, very weird way to get back to your first point. It sounds like the New York Times didn't really believe we were going to get much more of a statue.

Yeah, that's true.

But Bartoldi was determined, so he put out a statement that he was thinking about letting Philadelphia have the statue instead of New York City, which definitely got New York's attention, and the city quickly responded was like, no, no, no, we'll take it. And they announced that the hand and torch would go on display in Madison Square until the whole statue was ready to be put up in New York Harbor.

And how long are we talking about here?

It took a while.

I mean this took years. The torch was on display in Madison Square until eighteen eighty two, and as you can imagine, it had quite the presence, was as tall as the trees and buildings, and you could see it from blocks away. They sold souvenir photos to raise money, and tours could still climb into the arm for that same price of fifty cents. It was pretty exciting at first, but as the years went on, it just kind of became like any other structure in the city and people got used to seeing it.

Actually, and so what happens here, like the fundraising just keeps going.

I mean, basically, so Laboulia and Bartoldi had put on an opera performance in Paris other high profile fundraising events. So in eighteen seventy nine he had received two hundred and fifty thousand francs from the French public, which were enough to pay for the statue itself, but the Americans still had to pay for the pedestal.

I love how that just keeps coming up as you read about this.

Is like the Americans got to get it together for the pedestal, and there were some real roadblocks, like Grover Cleveland was the governor of New York at the time. He wouldn't allow for the use of city funds for the pedestal. Congress didn't help out. President Grant tried to ask Tiffany and Company to put up five thousand dollars for the project. It's unclear whether Tiffany's helped, but they did design and engrave the invitations for the statues dedication in eighteen eighty six.

So there's a statue that's ready and money for invitations, but no pedestal.

That's exactly right. And by this point other cities are begging for this thing. You've got Boston, San Francisco, Philadelphia, they all reach out and they say, we will pay for this, and New York is really at risk of losing the statue.

Now.

That's when Joseph Pulitzer swoops in to save the day. In eighteen eighty three, he starts a fundraising campaign in his newspaper Than New York World, and they're constantly publishing updates on the project in every donation they're collecting, and Pulletzer starts incentivizing people too, like he gave gold coins to the biggest donors and was trying to think of anything he could do.

It's so weird that we keep running into gold coins in this episode. Very Scrooge McDuck. But I guess this whole scheme works for them.

It's actually unbelievable how well it works. Kids are donating, so our business people, street cleaners, people.

From all walks of life.

The mayor of Buffalo donated his entire two hundred and thirty dollars annual salary, and over forty New Yorkers gave two hundred and fifty bucks. Now, thanks to this Pulleitzer push, it only took them five months to finish raising all the money they had needed. They ended up with over one hundred and sixty thousand donors and more than seventy five percent of the donations being less than a dollar. So all these people were chipping in what they could.

So mego.

We've covered the origins of the statue or at the point where the pedestal and the statue are finally finally paid for. But one thing I've always wondered is how does this thing get to New York? Like it's designed in Paris and built in the US, and how do you build this statue of this size? Like it's definitely still such a mind boggling thing to think about.

Yeah, it's astounding, Like when you live in New York, it's honestly so much just a part of the scenery. Yeah, but the more I read about the construction, the more insane it feels. So I guess Bartoldi started out with a four foot model of Lady Liberty, right, and it's like pocket size or whatever. But then they kept building

And so what happens after that, like they just put all those together.

No, so they still have to figure out how to make a copper version of this. So they take those three hundred sections and create molds for the copper, and then they hammer it against all the molds to create the shape. And they can do this because apparently the statue of Liberty is pretty thin skinned, like the copper that's being used is only the thickness of two pennies or three thirty seconds of an inch.

God, that is crazy. And so what's holding it all together?

I mean, that's really where Eifel comes in. So there's a flexible iron skeleton that's the scaffolding of the statue. And because Eifel was a genius with bridges, he knows all about how structures expand in the heat or need to bend to withstand the wind. Like if you think about it, all that sun could actually crack Liberty's face

Yeah, I mean, it's obviously just a huge, huge feat to finish this thing, and there's a ticker tape parade and people in Manhattan cheer for it. But what's interesting is that the statue wasn't immediately embraced by everyone. In fact, it became a lightning rod of protests. Really yeah, I mean, first of all, only two women were invited to the

That's, you know, a really fair point. And it's so crazy to me, Like, I just assume once they finally get this thing up, everyone's just going to appreciate it.

Yeah, I mean, and actually they weren't the only ones with something to say so. In November of that same year, the Cleveland Gazette published an editorial that read, shoved the Bartoldi statue, torch and all into the ocean until the liberty of this country is such as to make it possible for an inoffensive and industrious colored man in the South to earn a respectable living for himself and family without being ku Klux murdered, his wife and his daughter outraged,

I mean, it's funny or ironic because now the Statue of Liberty feels like such an important symbol of immigration. Like you think about the poem at the base, like it's not quite the tired, poor huddle masses that we so often reference.

That's exactly right. And actually only one person died during their construction of the statue in New York, and that was an immigrant. So in eighteen eighty three, Italian immigrant Francis Longo was working on the statue's foundation when a wall collapsed on him and he died tragically. So the statue's history with immigrants had a bad start, but things turned around in eighteen ninety two when nearby Ellis Island opened as an immigration processing center and received its first immigrants.

I love it. You're always bringing it up that.

You can't you can't not do it. We watched it again last week, so you have to.

Well, you know, like I said at the top, I just feel like I have so much more admiration for the statue. It always felt like this thing that was just like gifted to America the way the history books talk about it, and it is amazing to think how much work went into that.

It really is.

But you know, BARTHOLDI didn't just pick up his spurs and retire after that. He went on to keep crafting other masterpieces, including the Lion of Belfort, which is this incredible sandstone sculpture that you really should check out.

Oh that's really cool. I will definitely check that out. But I guess, in honor of BARTOLDI, why don't we push on just a little bit more after this masterpiece with a little fact off?

All right, so I'll kick us off here.

You may remember that Bartholdi's original statue idea for Egypt would have also been a lighthouse. Well, the Statue of Liberty was almost a lighthouse too, but engineers in New York couldn't figure out how to make lighthouse beacons work properly inside it. Apparently BARTHOLDI was incredibly upset about this, until everyone realized that Bedloe's Island wasn't a good spot for a lighthouse.

Anyway.

That's funny, So here's one. There are a lot of Statue of Liberty replicas around the world. BARTHOLDI himself actually built another one into a fountain he made in Bordeaux in eighteen eighty eight. Salvador Dhlly created a take on the statue in nineteen seventy two. His statue has both arms up and it's also in France. There's a thirty nine foot tall Lady Liberty in Tokyo Bay. There's one in Ukraine that's referred to as the Lazy Statue. This one is sitting down next to two shirtless men, and

That's very true. All right.

Well, I found a twenty seventeen article from Popular Mechanics that talks about a company that calculates the value of some very famous statues. So if we turned the Statue of Liberty into scrap metal, we get thirty one tons of copper and one hundred and twenty five tons of steel, this would all be worth two hundred and twenty eight thousand dollars. Somehow, I doubt they're going to resort to that at any point.

That is insane.

That's like, I definitely thought it would have been worth a lot more than.

That, right, Yeah, it's a very small apartment in nearby. Speaking of expense, you know what's funny. Originally Bartoldi wanted the Statue of Liberty to be gold, but you know, given how difficult it was for them to raise the money to make her out of copper, that definitely feels over ambitious.

Yeah, all right, well, speaking of over ambitious, Bartoldi also wanted to build a sort of quote American pantheon on Liberty Island. He thought the island should feature statues of American heroes like George Washington and his generals, and he wanted the US government to put more money aside every year so they could continually add monuments to this pantheon.

I love that. Like after spending decades trying to get a statue together, like BARTOLDI just couldn't stop. And he wanted them to put out a statue every year.

It's insane.

I think that earns you this week's trophy.

You can go, oh wow, I did not see that coming. Okay, well, thank you very much. And to the New Yorkers out there, I hope now when your friends and family come to visit and demand you do the touristy thing, you at least have some interesting backstory to think about along the way. And to all you listeners out there, thank you so much for tuning in. That's it for today's part time Genius. Now, if you want to talk abo with the Statue of Liberty or anything else related to the show, just email

Part Time Genius is a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. This show is hosted by Will Pearson and me Mongaschatikler, and research by our good pal Mary Philip Sandy. Today's episode was engineered and produced by the wonderful Dylan Fagan with support from Tyler Klang. The show is executive produced for iHeart by Katrina Norvell and Ali Perry, with social media support from Sasha Gay, trustee Dara Potts and Viney Shorey.

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