The Statue of Liberty

Situated at the entrance of New York Harbor stands one of the most important symbols of American liberty...The Statue of Liberty.  It was a gift from the French people to the United States of America as a token of mutual friendship.  Its designer, a Freemason, was Brother Frederic A. Bartholdi (1834-1904) who conceived its design while on a visit to America.  As his ship sailed into New York, Brother Bartholdi had a vision of a woman standing on a pedestal, holding a torch and welcoming immigrants to a new life in a free land.  Along with Brother Bartholdi, Brother Gustave Eiffel was also responsible for the statue.  Brother Eiffel designed and built the frame work which holds the copper sheeting in place.

Officially named Liberty Enlightening the World, the Statue of Liberty was designed by French sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi. After finalizing the design, wooden molds were made over which copper sheets were attached and hammered into shape. The copper shell was then joined to an internal iron structure designed by Gustave Eiffel, the man who later built the Eiffel Tower.

The statue was funded completely through donations made by the French people to commemorate the centennial of the alliance between the United States and France during the American Revolution. On the 4th of July, 1884, the 151 feet (46 meters) tall 225 ton Statue of Liberty was delivered to the American Ambassador in Paris. The Statue of Liberty was then dismantled into 300 pieces and packed into 214 wooden crates in order to bring it to New York Harbor.

The Statue of Liberty arrived in New York Harbor on June 17, 1886, and was placed on a massive monument designed by Richard Morris Hunt. The concrete and granite pedestal was surrounded by a star-shaped wall, which was part of Fort Wood, originally built to defend New York during the War of 1812.

Lady Liberty was the focal point of waves of immigrants, who came (and still come) to the shores of the United States from all over the world.  Their first glimpse of the Statue was one they never forgot, for it meant the end of poverty and oppression and the beginning of new hope.  The "melting pot" of America was created by millions of immigrants, who knew that freedom and opportunity were open to them in the new land, which they helped settle and build from the Atlantic to the Pacific.  France provided $400,000 for the 151 foot Statue, and a fundraising drive in the United States netted $270,000 for the 89 foot pedestal.  Upon completion, the pedestal stood 89 feet high from its foundation on old Fort Wood, on abandoned 12 acre site on Bedloes Island, 2,950 yards southwest of Manhattan Island.  Bedloes Island is now known as Liberty Island.

The statue, made of copper sheets with an iron framework, depicts a woman escaping the chains of tyranny, which lie at her feet. Her right hand holds aloft a burning torch that represents liberty. The flame of the torch is capped with 14K gold foil.  Her left hand holds a tablet inscribed with the date "July 4, 1776" (in Roman numerals), the day the United States declared its independence from England. She is wearing flowing robes and the seven rays of her spiked crown symbolize the seven seas and continents.  Brother Bartholdi's photo appears to the lwft.

The Jewish-American poet Emma Lazarus saw the Statue as a beacon to the world.  A poem she wrote to help raise money for the pedestal, and which is carved on that pedestal, captured what the Statue came to mean to the millions who migrated to the United States seeking freedom, and who have continued to come unto this day.

Emma Lazarus' famous words, "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free" may now be indelibly engraved into the collective American memory, but they did not achieve immortality overnight. In fact, Lazarus' sonnet to the Statue of Liberty was hardly noticed until after her death, when a patron of the New York arts found it tucked into a small portfolio of poems written in 1883 to raise money for the construction of the Statue of Liberty's pedestal. The patron, Georgina Schuyler, was struck by the poem and arranged to have its last five lines become a permanent part of the statue itself. More than twenty years later, children's textbooks began to include the sonnet and Irving Berlin wrote it into a Broadway musical. By 1945, the engraved poem was relocated--including all fourteen lines-- to be placed over the Statue of Liberty's main entrance.

Today the words themselves may be remembered a great degree more than the poet herself, but in Lazarus' time just the opposite was true. As a member of New York's social elite, Emma Lazarus (right) enjoyed a privileged childhood, nurtured by her family to become a respected poet recognized throughout the country for verses about her Jewish heritage. A reader and a dreamer, Lazarus had the good fortune to claim Ralph Waldo Emerson as a pen-pal and mentor. Before her death at age 37, Lazarus grew from a sheltered girl writing flowery prose about Classical Antiquity to a sophisticated New York aristocrat troubled by the violent injustices suffered by Jews in Eastern Europe.

In "The New Colossus," Lazarus contrasts the soon-to-be installed symbol of the United States with what many consider the perfect symbol of the Greek and Roman era, the Colossus of Rhodes. Her comparison proved appropriate, for Bartholdi himself created the Statue of Liberty with the well-known Colossus in mind. What Bartholdi did not intend, however, was for the Statue of Liberty to become a symbol of welcome for thousands of European immigrants. As political propaganda for France, the Statue of Liberty was first intended to be a path of enlightenment for the countries of Europe still battling tyranny and oppression. Lazarus' words, however, turned that idea on its head: the Statue of Liberty would forever on be considered a beacon of welcome for immigrants leaving their mother countries.

"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-bridges harbor that twin cities fame.
""Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!"" cries she
With silent lips.  "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breath 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 Statue of Liberty is not just a colossal 225-ton pile of metal reaching some 300 feet in the air at the entrance to New York Harbor, conspicuous by day and a guide to mariners by night.  Magnificent in its conception, wonderful in design, and a masterpiece of engineering skill, this gigantic figure, holding aloft a torch of freedom in one hand and clasping a book of laws inscribed with the date "July 4, 1776" in the other, casts its light far beyond the horizon.  The light which illumines the Statue of Liberty is a guiding symbol to the path of freedom for men of all nations.

The pedestal of the Statue of Liberty, on Bedloe's Island is surrounded by a 12 pointed star-shaped battery with 30 guns which was was completed in 1811 as defense for the original Fort Wood.  Named for Lt. Col Elenzer Wood who fought in the battle of Lake Erie in 1814.  By 1877 the island was under consideration for the Statue of Liberty and a garrison post had been built around the original fort. The island was selected and the pedestal completed within the fort by April 1886 and the Statue installed thereafter. Taken over for maintenance by the War Department in 1902. The National Park Service was formed in 1916 and took over operations in 1933 of two acres while the Army kept 10 acres. The NPS took total control in 1937 and the Army began to close the fort through December 1944. The garrison post buildings of Fort Wood were torn down from 1948 to 1950.  Tourists may visit the Statue from New York City or New Jersey click here for details.

Freemasons everywhere can well be proud of the key role played by the Craft in the inception and erection of this great memorial.  On August 5, 1984, the Grand Lodge of New York observed the Centenary of the cornerstone laying at Liberty Island (formerly Bedloes Island), which were attended by Masonic and Government dignitaries.  Huguenot Lodge No. 46, F&AM was one of the many Masonic lodges that marched in New York City on that day.  Our present Master W. Wayne Wyatt was the Master then and he recalls how the lodge proudly displayed the Lodge banner as they marched.  A bronze plaque commemorating the original event was dedicated and affixed to the pedestal.  Beneath the plaque are the names of M.W. Calvin G. Bond, Grand Master of Masons, M.W. Arthur Markewice Masonic Anniversary Chairman and R.W. Robert C. Singer, Deputy Grand Master.

If you are interested in visiting the Grand Lodge building at 71 West 23rd Street in NYC call 1800-3Mason4 for information.

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