HOME |
RSS | 
The following is an article from Uncle John’s All-Purpose Extra Strength Bathroom Reader.
Anyone who says one person can’t make a difference has never heard the story of the Statue of Liberty.
BIRTHDAY GIRL
In 1865 a young French sculptor named Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi went to a banquet near the town of Versailles, where he struck up a conversation with Edward de Laboulaye, a prominent historian.
De Laboulaye, a great admirer of the United States, observed that the country’s centennial was approaching in 1876. He thought it would be a good idea for France to present America with a gift to commemorate the occasion. But what? Bertholdi proposed a giant statue of some kind… and thought about it for the next six years.
COMING TO AMERICA
By 1871 Bartholdi had most of the details worked out in his mind: The American monument would be a colossal statue of a woman called “Liberty Enlightening the World.” It would be paid for by the French people, and the pedestal it stood on would be financed and built by Americans.
The idea excited him so much that he booked passage on a ship and sailed to New York to drum up support for it. As he entered New York Harbor, Bartholdi noticed a small, 12-acre piece of land near Ellis Island, called Bedloe’s Island. He decided it was the perfect spot for his statue.
Bartholdi
Bartholdi spent the next five months traveling around the U.S. and getting support for the statue. Then he went back to France, where the government of Emperor Napoléon III (Napoléon Bonaparte’s nephew) was openly hostile to the democratic and republican ideals celebrated by the Statue of Liberty. They would have jailed him if he had spoken of the project openly- so Bartholdi kept a low profile until 1874, when the Third Republic was proclaimed after Napoléon III’s defeat in the Franco-Prussian War.
Bartholdi went back to work. He founded a group called the Franco-American Union, comprised of French and American supporters, to help raise money for the statue. He also recruited Alexander-Gustave Eiffel, soon to become famous for the Eiffel Tower, to design the steel and iron framework to hold the statue up.
A WOMAN IN A HURRY
By now the centennial was only two years away. It was obvious that the huge statue couldn’t be designed, financed, built, shipped, and installed on Bedloe’s Island in time for the big celebration. But Bartholdi kept going anyway.
Raising the $400,000 he estimated was needed to build the statue in France wasn’t easy. Work stopped frequently when cash ran out, and Bartholdi and his craftspeople missed deadline after deadline. Then in 1880 the Franco-American Union came up with the idea of holding a “Liberty” lottery to raise funds. That did the trick.
In the United States, things were harder. There was some enthusiasm, but not as much as in France. It was, after all, a French statue …and not everyone was sure the country needed a French statue, even for free. The U.S. Congress did vote unanimously to accept the gift from France… but it didn’t provide any funding for the pedestal, and neither did the city of New York. Neither did the state.
more …
File this one under "oops." A new stamp intended to commemorate the Statue of Liberty actually featured the Las Vegas replica instead:
You might think that the post office would have just gone with the original, the one off the tip of Lower Manhattan that for 125 years has welcomed millions of New York’s huddled masses yearning to breathe free. Instead, they accidentally used the 14-year-old statue that presides over thousands of weary gamblers a week.
The post office, which had thought the Lady Liberty “forever” stamp featured the real thing, found out otherwise when a clever stamp collector who is also what one might call a superfan of the Statue of Liberty got suspicious and contacted Linn’s Stamp News, the essential read among philatelists.
But the post office is going with it.
“We still love the stamp design and would have selected this photograph anyway,” said Roy Betts, a spokesman. Mr. Betts did say, however, that the post office regrets the error and is “re-examining our processes to prevent this situation from happening in the future.”
Tokyoflash Landmark Clocks entry by Cliff
A couple of weeks or so ago, we told you of our pal Tokyoflash’s design-a-landmark clock contest, where you can submit your idea for a famous landmark modified to include a "Tokyoflash way of reading time."
Well, here are some of their favorite entries – and best of all, you can vote for the winner: Link – Thanks Paul!
Comments Off
