Facing southeast, with its back to New Jersey (no offense intended), the Statue of Liberty, America’s secular madonna, was dedicated 125 years ago today. For decades, it has served as a welcoming figure to the millions of immigrants who sailed into New York Harbor on their way to the processing center on nearby Ellis Island.
But the statue’s French designer didn’t have immigrants in mind when he began his masterpiece in the 1870s. Frederic Auguste Bartholdi boldly entitled his work “Liberty Enlightening the World.” He saw Lady Liberty’s gaze extending far beyond the harbor — far beyond the Atlantic Ocean. The glow from her torch was intended to light up the seven continents represented by the seven spikes on the statue’s crown.
The statue was supposed to honor the 100th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, but like so many construction projects in New York, this one finished behind schedule. Just in case anybody missed the point, however, the tablet in Lady Liberty’s left hand reads “July IV, MDCCLXXVI.” For those who forgot their Roman numerals, that reads July 4, 1776.
The French who donated the statue and the Americans who accepted it saw the Declaration of Independence as a milestone in pursuit of human liberty, and the statue as a symbol of liberty’s power to enlighten those who struggled in the darkness of tyranny and oppression. In his remarks during the opening ceremony, President Grover Cleveland proclaimed that “a stream of light shall pierce the darkness of ignorance and men’s oppression until liberty shall enlighten the world.”
The French and the Americans who gathered for the statue’s dedication believed that their nations shared a common heritage of individual freedom born of their republican revolutions in the late 18th century. The statue was designed to remind both nations that they were meant to spread liberty, to provide the fuel for Lady Liberty’s torch. The French consul-general Albert Lefaivre could hardly contain his enthusiasm — he said the French and Americans were destined to expand liberty “through the universe.” One giant leap for mankind.
These effusions were not without serious flaws. Black citizens of the United States might well have asked why liberty was denied them, not only in the South, but in every region of the nation. The French, for their part, were about to embark on a campaign of empire-building that would deny liberty to millions in Asia and Africa. Neither nation accorded women full rights — and full liberties.
None of this, of course, was mentioned in the speeches on Bedloe’s Island — now called Liberty Island — on Oct. 28, 1886. Instead, American and French officials spoke of the ideology embedded in their respective revolutions, the radical notion that human beings were entitled to live their lives and make their choices as they saw fit. Lady Liberty looked outward, not inward, symbolically spreading the light of freedom beyond America’s shores.
Eventually, of course, the statue’s narrative became intertwined with that of nearby Ellis Island. The words of the poet Emma Lazarus, who wrote of the “huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” were carved into the statue’s pedestal in 1903, transforming the statue from a symbol of universal liberty to a metaphor for Europe’s “wretched refuse” as they sailed into New York Harbor.
It is worth noting, however, that on this day 125 years ago, the mayor of New York was an Irish-Catholic immigrant named William R. Grace. During the colorful ceremonies marking the statue’s opening, Grace said nothing about his immigrant roots, and no speaker referred to the mayor’s heritage.
In fact, somebody forgot to invite the immigrant mayor to a grand parade celebrating the statue’s dedication.
Nobody, it seems, saw any connection between immigration and liberty. It took a poet to do that.
Terry Golway is director of the Kean University Center for History, Politics and Policy.