Speaker 1: You're listening to Part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
Speaker 1: and iHeartRadio. Guess what Will?
Speaker 2: What's that Mango?
Speaker 1: Did you know that Ellie the Elephant, who is the
Speaker 1: mascot of the WNBA team here at the New York Liberty,
Speaker 1: Did you know she has two stylists?
Speaker 2: Two stylists.
Speaker 3: I'm definitely familiar with Ellie the Elephant, and it has
Speaker 3: been so much fun to see how much buzz she's.
Speaker 2: Gotten over the past year or so.
Speaker 3: But I did not think about a mascot needing a stylist.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, Ellie isn't just any old mascot. She twerks,
Speaker 1: she goes to childish Gambino concerts, and she is a
Speaker 1: fashion trendsetter. And in the twenty twenty four WNBA season,
Speaker 1: she was spotted carrying a four hundred and twenty dollars
Speaker 1: person She's even been featured in Vogue for her style.
Speaker 3: I don't know, it makes me feel sort of sorry
Speaker 3: for mister Mett. He just seems pretty pretty normcore at
Speaker 3: this point. But I can't say that I were member
Speaker 3: seeing Ellie like way back when, Like how long has
Speaker 3: she actually been representing the Liberty?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was actually wondering about this too. Apparently she
Speaker 1: only debuted in twenty twenty one, but she has obviously
Speaker 1: made quite an impression, and it makes sense considering she's
Speaker 1: kind of a tribute to so much New York history, Like, like,
Speaker 1: what the fact that she's an elephant? For one, I'm
Speaker 1: not sure if you remember this, but P. T. Barnum
Speaker 1: brought twenty one elephants and seventeen camels over the Brooklyn
Speaker 1: Bridge in eighteen eighty four, and that was to help
Speaker 1: prove it was really sturdy. And then there's her name, Ellie,
Speaker 1: which is an obvious name for an elephant, but also
Speaker 1: a nod to Ellis Island. And of course she wears
Speaker 1: a crown that looks just like the Statue of Liberties.
Speaker 1: But watching Ellie's rise to fame and the Liberty becoming
Speaker 1: WNBA champions this year, it had me thinking more about
Speaker 1: the Statue of Liberty itself. And you know, it's kind
Speaker 1: of easy to take it for granted as this ever
Speaker 1: present symbol of freedom and immigration, but it got me
Speaker 1: to wondering, why did the French give this thing to us?
Speaker 1: And how do we get it here? So why don't
Speaker 1: we dive in.
Speaker 3: Hey their podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm
Speaker 3: Will Pearson and as always, I'm here with my good
Speaker 3: friend Mangesh hot Ticketter and sitting somewhere behind that big booth,
Speaker 3: that's our pal and producer Dylan.
Speaker 2: Now he looks like he's.
Speaker 3: Getting warm from carrying that big torch over his head,
Speaker 3: don't you think, Mango.
Speaker 1: I don't know why he's got a torch in there.
Speaker 1: He's always complaining that we're lighting scented candles and birthday
Speaker 1: aches around his equipment, and this.
Speaker 3: Doesn't really seem fair, It really doesn't. But I hope
Speaker 3: that he finds a big bucket of water or fire exting.
Speaker 3: We're sure to put that out because we've got an
Speaker 3: episode record here, but let's get to it. So, Mango,
Speaker 3: you obviously live in New York City, and I'm curious
Speaker 3: how many times have you actually visited the Statue of Liberty.
Speaker 1: I mean so many times. I ended up going so
Speaker 1: many times that I decided to create like a different
Speaker 1: tour of weird things to take people to just so
Speaker 1: I didn't have to go to the Statue of Liberty.
Speaker 1: So there was a nap room in the Empire State
Speaker 1: building for a while, there was a secret museum and
Speaker 1: an elevator shaft. There's a jewelry store that sells bond
Speaker 1: me in the back, like that type of thing. But weirdly,
Speaker 1: after working on this episode, I kind of want to
Speaker 1: make another trip to the Statue of Liberty because I'm
Speaker 1: really in awe of this thing and I kind of
Speaker 1: want to see it up close.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I get that.
Speaker 3: It's definitely one of those things that I think you
Speaker 3: appreciate it more with time and the more you just
Speaker 3: think about the fact that this giant statue exists.
Speaker 2: There, like right in the middle of the water.
Speaker 3: I noticed it every time I fly in, Like every time,
Speaker 3: for whatever reason, I always want to try to catch
Speaker 3: a quick glimpse of it, just because it's such a
Speaker 3: remarkable thing. But all right, well, why don't you kick
Speaker 3: off the story for us, So tell us, let's let's
Speaker 3: go back to the beginning. Tell us who came up
Speaker 3: with the idea of putting up a giant statue in
Speaker 3: the New York Harbor?
Speaker 1: Right? So the whole thing began in eighteen sixty five
Speaker 1: at a dinner party at the house of Eduard de
Speaker 1: la Boulie, and he had a bunch of politicians and
Speaker 1: intellectuals over they were chatting about politics and current events,
Speaker 1: and the discussion kind of moved into the topic of
Speaker 1: the United States. And to be clear, this probably wasn't
Speaker 1: totally random, considering that la Boulie was the author of
Speaker 1: a three volume history of the US right. So he's
Speaker 1: bringing people onto his home turf. And this party also
Speaker 1: came pretty soon about after the Confederates had surrendered to
Speaker 1: the Union and after Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. Apparently the
Speaker 1: French and actually the rest of the world had been
Speaker 1: watching the US Civil War closely seeing if this Republic
Speaker 1: could hold, and the people at this party were definitely
Speaker 1: courage when it did. But the news of Lincoln's assassination
Speaker 1: really hit them hard. In fact, according to a peace
Speaker 1: by our pal Linda Rodriguez Mcrabbie, frenchmen across the country
Speaker 1: were heartbroken by this news, and so much so that
Speaker 1: more than forty thousand French citizens contributed to a fund
Speaker 1: to award Mary Todd Lincoln a gold medal as a
Speaker 1: gesture of gratitude to her husband.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, it is a touching tribute. And I
Speaker 3: actually had not heard that story before but it's also
Speaker 3: a little bit weird, right, like, we're sorry your husband
Speaker 3: was assassinated, but you know what, here's a gold medal
Speaker 3: from our country.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I guess it's better than a silver
Speaker 1: or bronze. But back to this dinner party, this group
Speaker 1: of intellectuals was talking about how impressed they were that
Speaker 1: the US had persevered through these events, right, and it
Speaker 1: was obviously linked to current events there. France too, at
Speaker 1: the time, was dealing with issues of abolition, and many
Speaker 1: of these partygoers were part of the efforts to abolish
Speaker 1: slavery in France's African colonies. And also France had fairly
Speaker 1: recently had a whop of their own.
Speaker 3: You know, honestly, it's so hard for me to keep
Speaker 3: track of French revolts, Like I did not realize that
Speaker 3: one happened in the eighteen sixties.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so this one actually happened in eighteen fifty one.
Speaker 1: But Napoleon the Third, who was Napoleon Bonaparte's nephew, refused
Speaker 1: to leave the office of the president when he was
Speaker 1: supposed to, and he declared himself Emperor France. So at
Speaker 1: this dinner party, the group was like, how is this
Speaker 1: baby country keeping it together while we're still struggling.
Speaker 3: Mm hmm. I can imagine, you know, like lots of
Speaker 3: French dinner parties in the eighteen sixties where this was
Speaker 3: being discussed, and just trying to picture all of this discussion.
Speaker 3: But how is it that this one led to the
Speaker 3: building of a massive statue. That's what's still so strange
Speaker 3: to me.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So there was also a sculptor in attendance there.
Speaker 1: His name was Frederic Auguste Bartoldi, and Bartoldi became famous
Speaker 1: in the eighteen fifties for a statue of a French
Speaker 1: general named gene Rapp and La Boulie was kind of
Speaker 1: spitballing at his party, and so he said, well, France
Speaker 1: and the US are great friends, we supported the American
Speaker 1: Revolution and everything. What if there was a statue for that?
Speaker 3: And then they actually did it. I mean, that's what's
Speaker 3: so amazing about this whole thing. They built the statue,
Speaker 3: We've covered it, so it's time for the fact off, right.
Speaker 1: Not exactly so, after the party ended, Bartoldi started working
Speaker 1: on plans for a different idea he had. He had
Speaker 1: this vision of a statue slash lighthouse for Egypt. It
Speaker 1: was going to sit at the entrance of the Suez Canal.
Speaker 1: He titled it Egypt carrying the Light to Asia. And
Speaker 1: if you squint at his painting of what this would
Speaker 1: look like, you could kind of mistake it for Lady Liberty.
Speaker 1: It's a woman on a pedestal holding a torch. She's
Speaker 1: dressed in different garb, and she's raising her other hand.
Speaker 1: But the Egyptian government turned him down and the idea
Speaker 1: was scrapped, you know, for the time being.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it's tough when your whole thing is
Speaker 3: making massive statues and putting them in very prominent places,
Speaker 3: you do have to get used to some rejection in
Speaker 3: the process.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And that might be especially true for Bartoldi, who
Speaker 1: actually should be noted that he had the most supportive
Speaker 1: mom any artist could dream of. After his dad died
Speaker 1: when Bartoldi was a young child, his mom moved him
Speaker 1: and his brother from the city of Colmar, which is
Speaker 1: closer to that i'll says, Lorraine region, to Paris, and
Speaker 1: as he got more and more into drawing and sculpture,
Speaker 1: his mom totally supported his art career, not just by
Speaker 1: buying him chisels and stuff. She actually used to reach
Speaker 1: out to journalists to get them to write about her son.
Speaker 1: She also paid for his art studio where he made
Speaker 1: these massive creations. Apparently that statue of General Rapp which
Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier, it almost hit the studio ceiling he
Speaker 1: was in, but the statue ends up winning him twenty
Speaker 1: thousand francs in an art contest. It was actually too
Speaker 1: big to fit into the doors of the expo building
Speaker 1: where all the other contest pieces were, so it had
Speaker 1: to be placed in front of the building. And the
Speaker 1: whole thing that Bartoldi takes away from this experience is
Speaker 1: that big art gets big attention.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean that makes a lot of sense. So
Speaker 3: after the Egyptian government rejects Bartoldi, does he start thinking
Speaker 3: about the United States again or what?
Speaker 1: Well, first he goes off and fights in the Franco
Speaker 1: Prussian War, and then in eighteen seventy one, after that
Speaker 1: war ends, le Boulier and Bartoldi meet back up and
Speaker 1: get refocused on this statue idea. The problem was they
Speaker 1: still don't have any idea who would pay for it,
Speaker 1: which is something I know you looked into. But before
Speaker 1: we talk about that, let's take a quick break.
Speaker 3: Welcome back, to Part Time Genius, where we're talking about
Speaker 3: the Statue of Liberty, and it's becoming clear that this
Speaker 3: thing isn't quite as simple as just a gift from
Speaker 3: the French government to the United States.
Speaker 1: No, it's more like a couple of French civilians thought
Speaker 1: it would be a cool idea because they liked history
Speaker 1: and art and saw the US from across the bar
Speaker 1: and liked its five. I then decide to send it
Speaker 1: a statue. But uh, let's talk fundraising.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 3: So Leabulia and BARTHOLDI needed to figure out if there
Speaker 3: were statue fundraising opportunities in the US. Plus Lbulier thought
Speaker 3: it would be a good idea for BARTOLDI to spend
Speaker 3: some time there for the statue brainstorming, because they still
Speaker 3: hadn't finished what this statue could look like. So Bartoldi
Speaker 3: takes a small clay model he's made and he crosses
Speaker 3: the Atlantic. Now this was June of eighteen seventy one.
Speaker 3: When he arrives in New York City. He wrote Laboulia
Speaker 3: a letter describing the city wide eyed like he wrote, quote,
Speaker 3: everything is big here, even the green peas.
Speaker 2: I love that.
Speaker 3: But despite the inspiring size of the peas Bartholdi still
Speaker 3: had some concerns. So he thought the biggest barrier to
Speaker 3: his statue project would be quote, the American character, which
Speaker 3: is hardly open.
Speaker 2: To things of the imagination. It's pretty big dig there.
Speaker 3: But also the English wasn't great, so this whole thing
Speaker 3: was going to be a challenge from the very beginning.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that sounds particularly hard if you don't speak the language.
Speaker 1: So how did Bartoldi adapt to our would you say,
Speaker 1: unimaginative way?
Speaker 2: Exactly?
Speaker 3: Well, he quickly learned that he couldn't pitch the statue
Speaker 3: to people as a joint project between France and the US.
Speaker 3: He wasn't going to get much traction if he did that.
Speaker 3: So he did some quick thinking and he rebranded it
Speaker 3: as a quote, commemorative monument for eighteen seventy six, acting
Speaker 3: like France was already on board to pay for this piece,
Speaker 3: and that all the Americans had to do was sit
Speaker 3: back and you know, maybe chip in a little for
Speaker 3: the pedestal or something.
Speaker 1: Which is obviously stretching the truth a little bit there.
Speaker 2: It definitely was.
Speaker 3: I mean, in reality, it was just a few men
Speaker 3: who even knew about the statue. No money had been
Speaker 3: set aside for it, and BARTOLDI had been expecting that
Speaker 3: Americans would pay for half the thing. In the end,
Speaker 3: he spends four months in the US. He makes his
Speaker 3: way through New England, then crosses the country to California
Speaker 3: and returns all the way back to the East Coast.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's kind of a lot of travel for
Speaker 1: that time, right, like going coast to coast.
Speaker 3: I thought the same thing. But it's also crazy to
Speaker 3: see who he meets along the way, Like he sits
Speaker 3: down with some really heavy hitters, including President Ulysses S.
Speaker 2: Grant in New Jersey.
Speaker 3: In Salt Lake City, he meets Brigham Young and in
Speaker 3: all his meeting people in fact finding, that's how he
Speaker 3: lands on the theme of his statue, which is, drum roll,
Speaker 3: please liberty.
Speaker 1: I'm not like a famous sculptor or anything, but I
Speaker 1: feel like I could have gotten there without a four
Speaker 1: month brainstorming vacation through the US.
Speaker 3: I don't know, Mango, sometimes you got to do all
Speaker 3: those things to come up with that. But it wasn't
Speaker 3: as anticlimactic as it might sound like. Liberty was actually
Speaker 3: hot button term at the time. It didn't just mean
Speaker 3: freedom to everyone. A lot of people associated the idea
Speaker 3: with revolutions and violence, but Bartholdi and Laboulie decided to
Speaker 3: show a different side of liberty. The statue would be
Speaker 3: lighting the way to freedom in a peaceful, lawful way.
Speaker 3: They named it Liberty and Lightning the World. Plus that
Speaker 3: nugget of an idea bought Bartoldi and Libulier to the
Speaker 3: Roman goddess of freedom Libertas. She was on the seal
Speaker 3: of the Second French Republic and some American currency at
Speaker 3: the time, which is why the Statue of Liberty wears
Speaker 3: a Roman robe. And Libertas was an important figure to
Speaker 3: formally enslaved people in ancient Rome, so that made the
Speaker 3: choice especially fitting. But like you mentioned earlier, Bartoldi also
Speaker 3: took a lot of inspiration from the Suez Canal idea.
Speaker 1: So speaking of the connection between the Statue of Liberty
Speaker 1: and slavery, I think people sometimes forget that she has
Speaker 1: shackles at her feet, and it is interesting to read
Speaker 1: about the different takes on the statue and how explicitly
Speaker 1: anti slavery people believed it to be. So you know,
Speaker 1: as we mentioned earlier, people at Libulia's party were abolitionists,
Speaker 1: including Libulia himself. But Bartoldi he was actually aiming to
Speaker 1: be more a political with this thing. So, according to
Speaker 1: an author Kara Sutherland and her book The Statue of Liberty,
Speaker 1: Bartoldi wasn't trying to comment on slavery specifically. To him,
Speaker 1: those shackles represented political freedom in general, like America breaking
Speaker 1: free from England and persevering through internal conflict. And weirdly,
Speaker 1: those chains were even more prominent in his early sketches.
Speaker 1: Originally Lady Liberty was supposed to hold chains in her
Speaker 1: left hand where there's now a tablet. So, regardless of
Speaker 1: Bartoldi's intent or his claimed intent, abolition and slavery were
Speaker 1: certainly part of the conversation and actually just one more
Speaker 1: thing on political views of the time. In eighteen seventy one,
Speaker 1: the working in middle classes attempted in uprising in Paris,
Speaker 1: which you know, the government ruthlessly ends up squashing. But
Speaker 1: Lubouliet actually supports the government in this situation because he
Speaker 1: was against the uprisings violent strategy. He did want friends
Speaker 1: to be a democracy, but he didn't think this was
Speaker 1: the right way to get there, which doesn't sit well
Speaker 1: with his friends and colleagues. So in a sort of
Speaker 1: self branding way personal for him, it was like a
Speaker 1: good time to come out and announce that he was
Speaker 1: working on a statue about the beauty of liberty and democracy.
Speaker 3: Oh that's funny, all right, Well let's just get back
Speaker 3: to the fundraiser for just a second. Because you know,
Speaker 3: as you know, art can't be rushed. So it took
Speaker 3: a few years for Bartoldi to make a bigger model
Speaker 3: out of Terra Cotta for quote liberty and lightning the world,
Speaker 3: And finally in eighteen seventy five they were ready to
Speaker 3: start fundraising. So Laboulia and his liberal friends began reaching
Speaker 3: out to potential donors and holding these fundraiser concerts. They
Speaker 3: were looking for donations big and small, so they tried
Speaker 3: to connect people from all stations of life, and they
Speaker 3: kind of thought the fundraising would go easier because of
Speaker 3: what had happened with the gold medal for Mary Todd Lincoln.
Speaker 1: I mean, I feel like if these people only knew
Speaker 1: how historically significant their donations would be, Like the statue
Speaker 1: of Liberty has a critical role in Cloverfield and Independence Day,
Speaker 1: Batman Forever.
Speaker 3: And Batman forever, Like that alone, you think people would
Speaker 3: understand but also things like Mad magazine covers. Anyway, they
Speaker 3: start working on the statue and Bartoldi gets in touch
Speaker 3: with Alexander Gustav Eiffel, who of course would go on
Speaker 3: to design the Eiffel Tower later in his career, but
Speaker 3: at this point he's more famous for designing bridges. They
Speaker 3: also team up with another important artist and engineer, Eugene
Speaker 3: Violette LeDuc to create the statue skeleton, which is made
Speaker 3: of iron pylon.
Speaker 1: I kind of love how this story is like a
Speaker 1: who's who of the eighteen hundreds. We have presidents, religious leaders,
Speaker 1: and now the creator of the Eiffel Tower. Yes, it's amazing.
Speaker 3: It's pretty wild seeing it all come together, and their
Speaker 3: contributions are pretty significant, which we'll talk about a little
Speaker 3: bit later. But even with all of these famous friends,
Speaker 3: Bartoldi and Laboulie still needed more money. They knew they
Speaker 3: needed Americans to pay for the statue's granite pedestal. It
Speaker 3: would cost two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, which is
Speaker 3: over six million dollars in today's terms, and they hadn't
Speaker 3: gotten much money or interest in this just yet. So
Speaker 3: in eighteen seventy six, Bartoldi heads back to the United States,
Speaker 3: and this time he goes straight to Philadelphia for the
Speaker 3: centennial exposition. Now, right now, they basically only have enough
Speaker 3: money for the arm, so they ship that to the
Speaker 3: United States to put it on display in Philly.
Speaker 1: And any idea why they start with the arm, like
Speaker 1: instead of the face.
Speaker 3: Well, they had some rationale behind it, like if they
Speaker 3: couldn't raise enough money, it simply would have been a
Speaker 3: standalone piece.
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess that makes sense. But did this
Speaker 1: publicity start work?
Speaker 3: Actually, it got a lot of people excited, and when
Speaker 3: you hear about it, the World's Fair of that time
Speaker 3: is kind of amazing. So over the course of that
Speaker 3: summer in eighteen seventy six, ten million people from over
Speaker 3: thirty countries visited the exhibits, and Linda wrote about this
Speaker 3: for mental flaws.
Speaker 2: As you mentioned.
Speaker 3: Before, the exhibits featured quote, working elevators, electric lights, and
Speaker 3: even a live walrus, a live walrus maybe, And apparently
Speaker 3: the programming changed daily, and of course this giant arm
Speaker 3: with a torch that we talked about. But you know,
Speaker 3: the funny thing is that most people there didn't realize
Speaker 3: this was a fundraising gimmick or even a celebration of
Speaker 3: liberty or whatever it was. They just thought it was
Speaker 3: a way to get a view of surrounding counties, so
Speaker 3: they stood in line. They paid fifty cents to climb
Speaker 3: up the arm and stand on the torch's balcony. And meanwhile,
Speaker 3: Bartholdy kind of stood under it, hustling photos for extra
Speaker 3: cash whatever he could do.
Speaker 1: Which sounds a little desperate, but I guess that's because
Speaker 1: he was right.
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 3: And the press commented on this, and a September eighteen
Speaker 3: seventy six article The New York Times wrote quote, had
Speaker 3: the French sculptor honestly intended to complete the Statue of Liberty,
Speaker 3: he would have begun at its foundation. From present appearances,
Speaker 3: we have now all of the statue that we have,
Speaker 3: unless we are willing to pay the cost of finishing it.
Speaker 3: And it is more than doubtful if the American public
Speaker 3: is ready to undertake such a task. Now that said,
Speaker 3: they were all so kind of impressed by the size
Speaker 3: of the thing, And the same article it reads quote
Speaker 3: our eyes were gladdened by the actual receipt of a
Speaker 3: section of liberty consisting of one arm with its accompanying hand.
Speaker 3: Of such enormous proportion that the thumbnail afforded an easy
Speaker 3: seat for the largest woman now in existence.
Speaker 1: That's kind of a weird way, very weird way to
Speaker 1: get back to your first point. It sounds like the
Speaker 1: New York Times didn't really believe we were going to
Speaker 1: get much more of a statue.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 3: But Bartoldi was determined, so he put out a statement
Speaker 3: that he was thinking about letting Philadelphia have the statue
Speaker 3: instead of New York City, which definitely got New York's attention,
Speaker 3: and the city quickly responded was like, no, no, no,
Speaker 3: we'll take it. And they announced that the hand and
Speaker 3: torch would go on display in Madison Square until the
Speaker 3: whole statue was ready to be put up in New
Speaker 3: York Harbor.
Speaker 1: And how long are we talking about here?
Speaker 2: It took a while.
Speaker 3: I mean this took years. The torch was on display
Speaker 3: in Madison Square until eighteen eighty two, and as you
Speaker 3: can imagine, it had quite the presence, was as tall
Speaker 3: as the trees and buildings, and you could see it
Speaker 3: from blocks away. They sold souvenir photos to raise money,
Speaker 3: and tours could still climb into the arm for that
Speaker 3: same price of fifty cents. It was pretty exciting at first,
Speaker 3: but as the years went on, it just kind of
Speaker 3: became like any other structure in the city and people
Speaker 3: got used to seeing it.
Speaker 1: Actually, and so what happens here, like the fundraising just
Speaker 1: keeps going.
Speaker 3: I mean, basically, so Laboulia and Bartoldi had put on
Speaker 3: an opera performance in Paris other high profile fundraising events.
Speaker 3: So in eighteen seventy nine he had received two hundred
Speaker 3: and fifty thousand francs from the French public, which were
Speaker 3: enough to pay for the statue itself, but the Americans
Speaker 3: still had to pay for the pedestal.
Speaker 2: I love how that just keeps coming up as you
Speaker 2: read about this.
Speaker 3: Is like the Americans got to get it together for
Speaker 3: the pedestal, and there were some real roadblocks, like Grover
Speaker 3: Cleveland was the governor of New York at the time.
Speaker 3: He wouldn't allow for the use of city funds for
Speaker 3: the pedestal. Congress didn't help out. President Grant tried to
Speaker 3: ask Tiffany and Company to put up five thousand dollars
Speaker 3: for the project. It's unclear whether Tiffany's helped, but they
Speaker 3: did design and engrave the invitations for the statues dedication
Speaker 3: in eighteen eighty six.
Speaker 1: So there's a statue that's ready and money for invitations,
Speaker 1: but no pedestal.
Speaker 3: That's exactly right. And by this point other cities are
Speaker 3: begging for this thing. You've got Boston, San Francisco, Philadelphia,
Speaker 3: they all reach out and they say, we will pay
Speaker 3: for this, and New York is really at risk of
Speaker 3: losing the statue.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: That's when Joseph Pulitzer swoops in to save the day.
Speaker 3: In eighteen eighty three, he starts a fundraising campaign in
Speaker 3: his newspaper Than New York World, and they're constantly publishing
Speaker 3: updates on the project in every donation they're collecting, and
Speaker 3: Pulletzer starts incentivizing people too, like he gave gold coins
Speaker 3: to the biggest donors and was trying to think of
Speaker 3: anything he could do.
Speaker 1: It's so weird that we keep running into gold coins
Speaker 1: in this episode. Very Scrooge McDuck. But I guess this
Speaker 1: whole scheme works for them.
Speaker 3: It's actually unbelievable how well it works. Kids are donating,
Speaker 3: so our business people, street cleaners, people.
Speaker 2: From all walks of life.
Speaker 3: The mayor of Buffalo donated his entire two hundred and
Speaker 3: thirty dollars annual salary, and over forty New Yorkers gave
Speaker 3: two hundred and fifty bucks. Now, thanks to this Pulleitzer push,
Speaker 3: it only took them five months to finish raising all
Speaker 3: the money they had needed. They ended up with over
Speaker 3: one hundred and sixty thousand donors and more than seventy
Speaker 3: five percent of the donations being less than a dollar.
Speaker 3: So all these people were chipping in what they could.
Speaker 3: And so it's finally time to install the thing. But
Speaker 3: before we get to that, let's take one more quick break.
Speaker 3: Welcome back to Part Time Genius. We're talking about the
Speaker 3: Statue of Liberty.
Speaker 2: So mego.
Speaker 3: We've covered the origins of the statue or at the
Speaker 3: point where the pedestal and the statue are finally finally
Speaker 3: paid for. But one thing I've always wondered is how
Speaker 3: does this thing get to New York? Like it's designed
Speaker 3: in Paris and built in the US, and how do
Speaker 3: you build this statue of this size? Like it's definitely
Speaker 3: still such a mind boggling thing to think about.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's astounding, Like when you live in New York,
Speaker 1: it's honestly so much just a part of the scenery. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but the more I read about the construction, the more
Speaker 1: insane it feels. So I guess Bartoldi started out with
Speaker 1: a four foot model of Lady Liberty, right, and it's
Speaker 1: like pocket size or whatever. But then they kept building
Speaker 1: more and more replicas and increasing the dimensions. So they
Speaker 1: start with this four foot thing, and then they double
Speaker 1: it so it's about eight feet tall, and then they
Speaker 1: quadruple it into a plaster model that's a little over
Speaker 1: thirty six feet tall. And then Bartoldi and his men
Speaker 1: they break down this structure into three hundred little sections
Speaker 1: and they enlarge every one of those pieces to four
Speaker 1: times its size, which means now they've got this whole
Speaker 1: jigsaw puzzle of the full size statue.
Speaker 3: And so what happens after that, like they just put
Speaker 3: all those together.
Speaker 1: No, so they still have to figure out how to
Speaker 1: make a copper version of this. So they take those
Speaker 1: three hundred sections and create molds for the copper, and
Speaker 1: then they hammer it against all the molds to create
Speaker 1: the shape. And they can do this because apparently the
Speaker 1: statue of Liberty is pretty thin skinned, like the copper
Speaker 1: that's being used is only the thickness of two pennies
Speaker 1: or three thirty seconds of an inch.
Speaker 2: God, that is crazy. And so what's holding it all together?
Speaker 1: I mean, that's really where Eifel comes in. So there's
Speaker 1: a flexible iron skeleton that's the scaffolding of the statue.
Speaker 1: And because Eifel was a genius with bridges, he knows
Speaker 1: all about how structures expand in the heat or need
Speaker 1: to bend to withstand the wind. Like if you think
Speaker 1: about it, all that sun could actually crack Liberty's face
Speaker 1: if it wasn't constructed in this very flexible way. And
Speaker 1: so they build a statue in France in eighteen eighty four,
Speaker 1: and it basically sits there waiting to get shipped over
Speaker 1: to the US until you know, this pedestal money comes through,
Speaker 1: and then when it's already the statue of Liberty gets disassembled,
Speaker 1: packed up into two hundred and fourteen boxes, and then
Speaker 1: sent to America to get reassembled. But even then it's
Speaker 1: kind of a pain, Like apparently the pedestal was so
Speaker 1: small that they couldn't put up a rig around her,
Speaker 1: so the workers while they were working were actually dangling
Speaker 1: from ropes latched to the framework of this structure, all
Speaker 1: while the wind and elements are kicking up around them.
Speaker 1: I mean, it is insane to think about. And finally,
Speaker 1: on October twenty eighth, eighteen eighty six, the statue is complete.
Speaker 1: So you know, it's just twelve years and a couple
Speaker 1: months past the original deadline that they set for themselves
Speaker 1: of the American Centennial, and that's what France had had
Speaker 1: been aiming for. But you know, like you said, great
Speaker 1: art takes great time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, it's obviously just a huge, huge feat
Speaker 3: to finish this thing, and there's a ticker tape parade
Speaker 3: and people in Manhattan cheer for it. But what's interesting
Speaker 3: is that the statue wasn't immediately embraced by everyone. In fact,
Speaker 3: it became a lightning rod of protests. Really yeah, I mean,
Speaker 3: first of all, only two women were invited to the
Speaker 3: unveiling on Bedloe's Island, which is now Liberty Island. So
Speaker 3: members of the New York State Women Suffrage Association chartered
Speaker 3: a boat, got in a front row right up there
Speaker 3: in the center on the water, and after the unveiling,
Speaker 3: Lily Devereux Blake gave a speech and in it she said,
Speaker 3: quote in erecting a statue of liberty embodied as a
Speaker 3: woman in a land where no woman has political liberty.
Speaker 3: Men have shown a delightful inconsistency which excites the wonder
Speaker 3: and admiration of the opposite sex.
Speaker 1: That's, you know, a really fair point. And it's so
Speaker 1: crazy to me, Like, I just assume once they finally
Speaker 1: get this thing up, everyone's just going to appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, and actually they weren't the only ones
Speaker 3: with something to say so. In November of that same year,
Speaker 3: the Cleveland Gazette published an editorial that read, shoved the
Speaker 3: Bartoldi statue, torch and all into the ocean until the
Speaker 3: liberty of this country is such as to make it
Speaker 3: possible for an inoffensive and industrious colored man in the
Speaker 3: South to earn a respectable living for himself and family
Speaker 3: without being ku Klux murdered, his wife and his daughter outraged,
Speaker 3: and his property destroyed. Also undermining the idea of liberty
Speaker 3: was the fact that the federal government had only just
Speaker 3: passed the Chinese Exclusion Act. These were the ones restricting
Speaker 3: immigrants based on race. This was in eighteen eighty two.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's funny or ironic because now the Statue
Speaker 1: of Liberty feels like such an important symbol of immigration.
Speaker 1: Like you think about the poem at the base, like
Speaker 1: it's not quite the tired, poor huddle masses that we
Speaker 1: so often reference.
Speaker 3: That's exactly right. And actually only one person died during
Speaker 3: their construction of the statue in New York, and that
Speaker 3: was an immigrant. So in eighteen eighty three, Italian immigrant
Speaker 3: Francis Longo was working on the statue's foundation when a
Speaker 3: wall collapsed on him and he died tragically. So the
Speaker 3: statue's history with immigrants had a bad start, but things
Speaker 3: turned around in eighteen ninety two when nearby Ellis Island
Speaker 3: opened as an immigration processing center and received its first immigrants.
Speaker 3: So over the next sixty two years, more than twelve
Speaker 3: million people went through Ellis Island on the way to
Speaker 3: the United States. Now this helped cement the Statue of
Speaker 3: Liberty as a symbol of immigration. It was all of
Speaker 3: those immigrants who passed by the statue and saw it
Speaker 3: as a welcome on their journey to America and really
Speaker 3: gave it its meaning and significance. And as for that
Speaker 3: famous poem he referenced, it's called the New Colossus. It
Speaker 3: was written by Emma Lazarus. This was back in eighteen
Speaker 3: eighty three. She actually wrote it for one of the
Speaker 3: statue pedestal fundraisers. It was an art auction at the time,
Speaker 3: and it wasn't added to the statue until nineteen oh three,
Speaker 3: and that actually after a lot of lobbying by one
Speaker 3: of Lazarus's friends, Georgina Schuyler, a descendant of famous immigrant
Speaker 3: Alexander Hamilton.
Speaker 1: I love it. You're always bringing it up that.
Speaker 2: You can't you can't not do it. We watched it
Speaker 2: again last week, so you have to.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, like I said at the top, I
Speaker 1: just feel like I have so much more admiration for
Speaker 1: the statue. It always felt like this thing that was
Speaker 1: just like gifted to America the way the history books
Speaker 1: talk about it, and it is amazing to think how
Speaker 1: much work went into that.
Speaker 2: It really is.
Speaker 3: But you know, BARTHOLDI didn't just pick up his spurs
Speaker 3: and retire after that. He went on to keep crafting
Speaker 3: other masterpieces, including the Lion of Belfort, which is this
Speaker 3: incredible sandstone sculpture that you really should check out.
Speaker 1: Oh that's really cool. I will definitely check that out.
Speaker 1: But I guess, in honor of BARTOLDI, why don't we
Speaker 1: push on just a little bit more after this masterpiece
Speaker 1: with a little fact off?
Speaker 2: All right, so I'll kick us off here.
Speaker 3: You may remember that Bartholdi's original statue idea for Egypt
Speaker 3: would have also been a lighthouse. Well, the Statue of
Speaker 3: Liberty was almost a lighthouse too, but engineers in New
Speaker 3: York couldn't figure out how to make lighthouse beacons work
Speaker 3: properly inside it. Apparently BARTHOLDI was incredibly upset about this,
Speaker 3: until everyone realized that Bedloe's Island wasn't a good spot
Speaker 3: for a lighthouse.
Speaker 2: Anyway.
Speaker 1: That's funny, So here's one. There are a lot of
Speaker 1: Statue of Liberty replicas around the world. BARTHOLDI himself actually
Speaker 1: built another one into a fountain he made in Bordeaux
Speaker 1: in eighteen eighty eight. Salvador Dhlly created a take on
Speaker 1: the statue in nineteen seventy two. His statue has both
Speaker 1: arms up and it's also in France. There's a thirty
Speaker 1: nine foot tall Lady Liberty in Tokyo Bay. There's one
Speaker 1: in Ukraine that's referred to as the Lazy Statue. This
Speaker 1: one is sitting down next to two shirtless men, and
Speaker 1: they are also replicas in Greece, Hungary and Peru. You
Speaker 1: really kind of escape the Statue of Liberty no matter
Speaker 1: where you go.
Speaker 2: That's very true. All right.
Speaker 3: Well, I found a twenty seventeen article from Popular Mechanics
Speaker 3: that talks about a company that calculates the value of
Speaker 3: some very famous statues. So if we turned the Statue
Speaker 3: of Liberty into scrap metal, we get thirty one tons
Speaker 3: of copper and one hundred and twenty five tons of steel,
Speaker 3: this would all be worth two hundred and twenty eight
Speaker 3: thousand dollars. Somehow, I doubt they're going to resort to
Speaker 3: that at any point.
Speaker 1: That is insane.
Speaker 3: That's like, I definitely thought it would have been worth
Speaker 3: a lot more than.
Speaker 1: That, right, Yeah, it's a very small apartment in nearby.
Speaker 1: Speaking of expense, you know what's funny. Originally Bartoldi wanted
Speaker 1: the Statue of Liberty to be gold, but you know,
Speaker 1: given how difficult it was for them to raise the
Speaker 1: money to make her out of copper, that definitely feels
Speaker 1: over ambitious.
Speaker 3: Yeah, all right, well, speaking of over ambitious, Bartoldi also
Speaker 3: wanted to build a sort of quote American pantheon on
Speaker 3: Liberty Island. He thought the island should feature statues of
Speaker 3: American heroes like George Washington and his generals, and he
Speaker 3: wanted the US government to put more money aside every
Speaker 3: year so they could continually add monuments to this pantheon.
Speaker 1: I love that. Like after spending decades trying to get
Speaker 1: a statue together, like BARTOLDI just couldn't stop. And he
Speaker 1: wanted them to put out a statue every year.
Speaker 2: It's insane.
Speaker 1: I think that earns you this week's trophy.
Speaker 3: You can go, oh wow, I did not see that coming. Okay, well,
Speaker 3: thank you very much. And to the New Yorkers out there,
Speaker 3: I hope now when your friends and family come to
Speaker 3: visit and demand you do the touristy thing, you at
Speaker 3: least have some interesting backstory to think about along the way.
Speaker 3: And to all you listeners out there, thank you so
Speaker 3: much for tuning in. That's it for today's part time Genius. Now,
Speaker 3: if you want to talk abo with the Statue of
Speaker 3: Liberty or anything else related to the show, just email
Speaker 3: our mothers at ptgenius Moms at gmail dot com. They
Speaker 3: always love hearing from you and Most of the time
Speaker 3: they pass it on to us, but you can also
Speaker 3: hit us up on our instant at Part Time I'm Genius.
Speaker 3: For this week's episode, we had special help with research
Speaker 3: and writing from Meredith Danko.
Speaker 1: Part Time Genius is a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: This show is hosted by Will Pearson and me Mongaschatikler,
Speaker 1: and research by our good pal Mary Philip Sandy. Today's
Speaker 1: episode was engineered and produced by the wonderful Dylan Fagan
Speaker 1: with support from Tyler Klang. The show is executive produced
Speaker 1: for iHeart by Katrina Norvell and Ali Perry, with social
Speaker 1: media support from Sasha Gay, trustee Dara Potts and Viney Shorey.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Speaker 3: Oh