1
00:00:00,280 --> 00:00:03,200
Speaker 1: What of the Eiffel Tower, the Washington Monument, and the

2
00:00:03,200 --> 00:00:05,800
Speaker 1: Statue of Liberty all have in common? Well, guess what?

3
00:00:06,400 --> 00:00:09,320
Speaker 1: All three were hated by the public when they first debuted.

4
00:00:09,680 --> 00:00:14,160
Speaker 1: I'm Patty Steele from ridiculed to revered. Next on the backstory.

5
00:00:18,360 --> 00:00:21,720
Speaker 1: The Eiffel Tower pretty much defines the skyline of Paris,

6
00:00:21,720 --> 00:00:25,000
Speaker 1: wouldn't you say? But when it was first proposed years

7
00:00:25,000 --> 00:00:27,960
Speaker 1: before it debuted at the Paris World's Fair back in

8
00:00:28,000 --> 00:00:30,920
Speaker 1: the late eighteen eighties, a whole lot of people in

9
00:00:31,080 --> 00:00:34,440
Speaker 1: not fans. That included the engineer who actually built it

10
00:00:34,800 --> 00:00:38,640
Speaker 1: and for whom it was named, Gustave Eiffel. When engineers

11
00:00:38,640 --> 00:00:41,320
Speaker 1: who worked for him told them about their idea, he

12
00:00:41,440 --> 00:00:44,640
Speaker 1: sort of said, meh, But finally you went along, even

13
00:00:44,840 --> 00:00:48,280
Speaker 1: eventually buying the patent for the design. As they started

14
00:00:48,320 --> 00:00:52,040
Speaker 1: to build, critics complained it was dangerous since there was

15
00:00:52,120 --> 00:00:55,120
Speaker 1: nothing remotely as tall in Paris, and they thought it

16
00:00:55,160 --> 00:00:59,120
Speaker 1: would destroy the Parisian skyline. Huge group of assorted big

17
00:00:59,120 --> 00:01:05,200
Speaker 1: shots published a letter of protests saying, in part, we writers, painters, sculptors,

18
00:01:05,520 --> 00:01:10,200
Speaker 1: architects and passionate devotees of the untouched beauty of Paris

19
00:01:10,640 --> 00:01:14,720
Speaker 1: protest with strength and indignation against the erection of this

20
00:01:14,959 --> 00:01:20,440
Speaker 1: useless and monstrous Eiffel Tower, a giddy, ridiculous tower dominating

21
00:01:20,560 --> 00:01:25,520
Speaker 1: Paris like a giant black smokestack, crushing Notre Dame, the Louver,

22
00:01:25,840 --> 00:01:29,080
Speaker 1: the Arc de Triomph, stretching like a blot of ink,

23
00:01:29,440 --> 00:01:33,880
Speaker 1: the hateful shadow of bolted sheet metal Eifel. By that time,

24
00:01:33,920 --> 00:01:37,480
Speaker 1: a fan answered back, comparing it to the Pyramids in Egypt.

25
00:01:37,840 --> 00:01:45,280
Speaker 1: That's a lot of back and forth, isn't it. After

26
00:01:45,360 --> 00:01:49,520
Speaker 1: the tower was built, some still protested, but eventually they

27
00:01:49,560 --> 00:01:53,120
Speaker 1: did relent. It took thirty years for locals to finally

28
00:01:53,160 --> 00:01:57,160
Speaker 1: embrace it as the symbol of Paris. Now seven million

29
00:01:57,200 --> 00:02:01,280
Speaker 1: people a year visit the Eiffel Tower. Okay, that's the French,

30
00:02:01,560 --> 00:02:05,240
Speaker 1: But what about here in America? The Washington Monument pretty

31
00:02:05,320 --> 00:02:09,160
Speaker 1: much defines our nation's capital, right. But George died in

32
00:02:09,200 --> 00:02:12,519
Speaker 1: seventeen ninety nine, and you know what, it took well

33
00:02:12,560 --> 00:02:16,160
Speaker 1: over forty years for folks in Washington to even agree

34
00:02:16,200 --> 00:02:20,400
Speaker 1: on a design. They finally started it in eighteen forty eight,

35
00:02:20,960 --> 00:02:24,959
Speaker 1: but then stopped when private funding ran out. Then protests

36
00:02:24,960 --> 00:02:28,640
Speaker 1: began about five years later, so there it sat a

37
00:02:28,680 --> 00:02:32,480
Speaker 1: half finished stump. At one point, even Mark Twain said

38
00:02:32,560 --> 00:02:35,240
Speaker 1: it looked like a crimy old chimney. He called it

39
00:02:35,280 --> 00:02:37,720
Speaker 1: an eye sord and said they should tear it down

40
00:02:37,880 --> 00:02:41,440
Speaker 1: or do something with it. They finally decided to finish it,

41
00:02:41,639 --> 00:02:44,080
Speaker 1: and they decided to try it on the cheap. That

42
00:02:44,160 --> 00:02:47,320
Speaker 1: was around eighteen seventy six. They got it done ten

43
00:02:47,400 --> 00:02:51,360
Speaker 1: years later. Now, while the original designer hated the changes,

44
00:02:51,560 --> 00:02:55,600
Speaker 1: said it looked like a stalk of asparagus, eventually it

45
00:02:55,639 --> 00:02:59,880
Speaker 1: came to symbolize not just George Washington, but the nation's capital.

46
00:03:00,360 --> 00:03:03,720
Speaker 1: Over a million people visit every single year, and that

47
00:03:03,840 --> 00:03:07,040
Speaker 1: takes us too. The Statue of Liberty, Now, how in

48
00:03:07,080 --> 00:03:10,440
Speaker 1: the heck could anybody not love Lady Liberty. Just listen,

49
00:03:12,680 --> 00:03:15,960
Speaker 1: here's the first surprise. She was actually designed to be

50
00:03:16,160 --> 00:03:19,280
Speaker 1: a lighthouse, but from the beginning she had a rough

51
00:03:19,320 --> 00:03:23,000
Speaker 1: go of it. In eighteen eighty six, the US accepted

52
00:03:23,040 --> 00:03:26,239
Speaker 1: from the French a friendship gift. The three hundred and

53
00:03:26,280 --> 00:03:30,680
Speaker 1: five foot tall statue, called Liberty Enlightening the World. Not

54
00:03:30,840 --> 00:03:34,760
Speaker 1: a hit with the public. One newspaper said America didn't

55
00:03:34,800 --> 00:03:37,600
Speaker 1: want the statue. She took it because the French offered it.

56
00:03:38,280 --> 00:03:41,000
Speaker 1: Then there was the problem of the statue not doing

57
00:03:41,040 --> 00:03:43,720
Speaker 1: the job it was meant to do. The light from

58
00:03:43,800 --> 00:03:47,400
Speaker 1: Liberty was way too dim. On top of that, Liberty

59
00:03:47,440 --> 00:03:50,120
Speaker 1: Island was set back too far from the open sea

60
00:03:50,400 --> 00:03:54,040
Speaker 1: where it would be useful to approaching ships. So early

61
00:03:54,160 --> 00:03:57,200
Speaker 1: days of electricity, that couldn't brighten it up, that couldn't

62
00:03:57,200 --> 00:03:59,880
Speaker 1: move it once it was in place, they were stuck.

63
00:04:00,640 --> 00:04:03,440
Speaker 1: Then there was the problem of all the dead birds.

64
00:04:04,120 --> 00:04:06,760
Speaker 1: Its height and the light in the torch meant big

65
00:04:06,800 --> 00:04:10,920
Speaker 1: trouble for migrating birds. Tens of thousands of them got

66
00:04:10,960 --> 00:04:14,320
Speaker 1: caught in liberty circle of light, which confused them, and

67
00:04:14,360 --> 00:04:17,920
Speaker 1: that sent them slamming into the statue itself. There was

68
00:04:17,960 --> 00:04:21,880
Speaker 1: a disturbing sight. One headline talked about the quote slaughter

69
00:04:22,000 --> 00:04:24,880
Speaker 1: of birds by the Statue of Liberty not the kind

70
00:04:24,920 --> 00:04:28,039
Speaker 1: of pr they were looking for. I'm sure. Finally we

71
00:04:28,120 --> 00:04:30,880
Speaker 1: get to the eighteen nineties. Now, by that time, the

72
00:04:30,920 --> 00:04:33,640
Speaker 1: statue had really started to look like a mess. Hardly

73
00:04:33,680 --> 00:04:36,400
Speaker 1: anybody came to visit it. It wasn't given much in

74
00:04:36,440 --> 00:04:39,120
Speaker 1: the way of upkeep, and the New York Times called

75
00:04:39,120 --> 00:04:43,719
Speaker 1: it a total disgrace. What changed everybody's minds. It was

76
00:04:43,839 --> 00:04:48,760
Speaker 1: one woman's vision. In nineteen oh one, a longtime friend

77
00:04:48,760 --> 00:04:52,000
Speaker 1: of the poet Emma Lazarus, who had died a decade earlier,

78
00:04:52,440 --> 00:04:55,840
Speaker 1: wanted to celebrate her friend and the statue by having

79
00:04:55,880 --> 00:05:00,000
Speaker 1: a plaquemaid with Emma's poem The New Colossus engraved on it.

80
00:05:00,640 --> 00:05:03,400
Speaker 1: Some of the words of the poem are give me

81
00:05:03,520 --> 00:05:08,560
Speaker 1: you're tired, you're poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.

82
00:05:08,640 --> 00:05:13,200
Speaker 1: I lift my lamp beside the golden door. Ah that

83
00:05:13,320 --> 00:05:17,320
Speaker 1: pulled it all together. Those words inspired folks. What with

84
00:05:17,400 --> 00:05:20,599
Speaker 1: so many immigrants arriving in America right across the harbor

85
00:05:20,640 --> 00:05:24,200
Speaker 1: at Ellis Island, looking for a better life. The Statue

86
00:05:24,200 --> 00:05:28,080
Speaker 1: of Liberty, with her lamp raised welcoming those tired masses,

87
00:05:28,560 --> 00:05:31,680
Speaker 1: gave her meaning and that has made it a destination

88
00:05:32,080 --> 00:05:42,200
Speaker 1: for four and a half million people a year. Often

89
00:05:42,240 --> 00:05:43,919
Speaker 1: it takes a little bit of time for us to

90
00:05:43,960 --> 00:05:48,599
Speaker 1: bond with new ideas, new buildings, new monuments. But with time,

91
00:05:48,800 --> 00:05:53,360
Speaker 1: a little bit of objectivity and terrific marketing minds can

92
00:05:53,400 --> 00:06:02,880
Speaker 1: be changed. I'm Patty Steele. The Backstory is a production

93
00:06:03,000 --> 00:06:07,400
Speaker 1: of iHeartMedia and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer is Doug Fraser.

94
00:06:07,600 --> 00:06:11,440
Speaker 1: Our executive producer is Steve Goldstein of Amplified Media. We're

95
00:06:11,440 --> 00:06:14,680
Speaker 1: out with new episodes twice a week. Thanks for listening

96
00:06:14,720 --> 00:06:17,880
Speaker 1: to the backstory, the pieces of history you didn't know

97
00:06:18,000 --> 00:06:18,760
Speaker 1: you needed to know.