The Statue of Liberty's new museum: Statue celebrated freed slaves, not immigrants

[dedej]

Lady Liberty was inspired by the end of the Civil War and emancipation. The connection to immigration came later.


Gillian Brockell
May 23 at 7:30 AM

The new Statue of Liberty Museum in New York Harbor boasts a number of treasures: the original torch, which was replaced in the 1980s; an unoxidized (read: not green) copper replica of Lady Liberty’s face; and recordings of immigrants describing the sight of the 305-foot monument.

It also revives an aspect of the statue’s long-forgotten history: Lady Liberty was originally designed to celebrate the end of slavery, not the arrival of immigrants. Ellis Island, the inspection station through which million of immigrants passed, didn’t open until six years after the statue was unveiled in 1886. The plaque with the famous Emma Lazarus poem wasn’t added until 1903.

“One of the first meanings [of the statue] had to do with abolition, but it’s a meaning that didn’t stick,” Edward Berenson, a history professor at New York University and author of the book “The Statue of Liberty: A Transatlantic Story,” said in an interview with The Washington Post.

“They talked about the idea of creating some kind of commemorative gift that would recognize the importance of the liberation of the slaves,” Berenson said.

theory has her face being adapted from a statue Bartholdi had proposed for the Suez Canal, meaning her visage could resemble that of an Egyptian woman. The Times reported she was based on the Roman goddess Libertas, who typically wore the type of cap worn by freed Roman slaves.

In the final model, Lady Liberty holds a tablet inscribed with the Roman numerals for July 4, 1776. The broken chains are still there though, beneath her feet, “but they’re not all that visible,” Berenson said.

National Park Service. And sailing into New York Harbor, he spotted the perfect location for it: Bedloe’s Island, then occupied by the crumbling Fort Wood.

Fundraising in both France and the United States took awhile, and according to the NPS, Bartholdi cast the project in the broadest terms possible to widen the net of potential donors. He also built the torch-bearing arm to tour around and inspire people to open up their wallets.

Left to right: The bust of the Statue of Liberty on display in Paris in 1884 before it was shipped to the United States. The statue towers over Paris rooftops in 1884. The right arm of the statue on display in Philadelphia in 1876. (AP)

Bartholdi finished building the statue in Paris in 1884. Two years later, he oversaw its reconstruction in New York. “Liberty Enlightening the World” was “unveiled” on Oct. 28, 1886 — but that did not involve a very big sheet. Instead, there were fireworks, a military parade, and Bartholdi climbing to the top and pulling a French flag from his muse’s face.

By then, “the original meaning of the abolition of slavery had pretty much gotten lost,” Berenson said, going unmentioned in newspaper coverage.

In fact, black newspapers railed against it as meaningless and hypocritical. By 1886, Reconstruction had been crushed, the Supreme Court had rolled back civil rights protections, and Jim Crow laws were tightening their grip.

In his book, Berenson quotes an 1886 editorial in the black newspaper the Cleveland Gazette: “Shove the Bartholdi statue, torch and all, into the ocean until the ‘liberty’ of this country is such as to make it possible for an industrious and inoffensive colored man in the South to earn a respectable living for himself and family … The idea of the ‘liberty’ of this country ‘enlightening the world,’ or even Patagonia, is ridiculous in the extreme.”

W.E.B. Du Bois also mentioned this in his autobiography, recalling seeing the statue upon arriving back in the United States in 1894 after two years in Europe: “I know not what multitude of emotions surged in the others, but I had to recall [a] mischievous little French girl whose eyes twinkled as she said: ‘Oh, yes, the Statue of Liberty! With its back toward America, and its face toward France!’”

There were immigrants on board that ship with Du Bois, but he didn’t talk to any of them. The ship was segregated.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/hist...igrants/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.73fd61f9863b

 

[2ndOVM]

Lady Liberty was inspired by the end of the Civil War and emancipation. The connection to immigration came later.


Gillian Brockell
May 23 at 7:30 AM

The new Statue of Liberty Museum in New York Harbor boasts a number of treasures: the original torch, which was replaced in the 1980s; an unoxidized (read: not green) copper replica of Lady Liberty’s face; and recordings of immigrants describing the sight of the 305-foot monument.

It also revives an aspect of the statue’s long-forgotten history: Lady Liberty was originally designed to celebrate the end of slavery, not the arrival of immigrants. Ellis Island, the inspection station through which million of immigrants passed, didn’t open until six years after the statue was unveiled in 1886. The plaque with the famous Emma Lazarus poem wasn’t added until 1903.

“One of the first meanings [of the statue] had to do with abolition, but it’s a meaning that didn’t stick,” Edward Berenson, a history professor at New York University and author of the book “The Statue of Liberty: A Transatlantic Story,” said in an interview with The Washington Post.

“They talked about the idea of creating some kind of commemorative gift that would recognize the importance of the liberation of the slaves,” Berenson said.

theory has her face being adapted from a statue Bartholdi had proposed for the Suez Canal, meaning her visage could resemble that of an Egyptian woman. The Times reported she was based on the Roman goddess Libertas, who typically wore the type of cap worn by freed Roman slaves.

In the final model, Lady Liberty holds a tablet inscribed with the Roman numerals for July 4, 1776. The broken chains are still there though, beneath her feet, “but they’re not all that visible,” Berenson said.

National Park Service. And sailing into New York Harbor, he spotted the perfect location for it: Bedloe’s Island, then occupied by the crumbling Fort Wood.

Fundraising in both France and the United States took awhile, and according to the NPS, Bartholdi cast the project in the broadest terms possible to widen the net of potential donors. He also built the torch-bearing arm to tour around and inspire people to open up their wallets.

Left to right: The bust of the Statue of Liberty on display in Paris in 1884 before it was shipped to the United States. The statue towers over Paris rooftops in 1884. The right arm of the statue on display in Philadelphia in 1876. (AP)

Bartholdi finished building the statue in Paris in 1884. Two years later, he oversaw its reconstruction in New York. “Liberty Enlightening the World” was “unveiled” on Oct. 28, 1886 — but that did not involve a very big sheet. Instead, there were fireworks, a military parade, and Bartholdi climbing to the top and pulling a French flag from his muse’s face.

By then, “the original meaning of the abolition of slavery had pretty much gotten lost,” Berenson said, going unmentioned in newspaper coverage.

In fact, black newspapers railed against it as meaningless and hypocritical. By 1886, Reconstruction had been crushed, the Supreme Court had rolled back civil rights protections, and Jim Crow laws were tightening their grip.

In his book, Berenson quotes an 1886 editorial in the black newspaper the Cleveland Gazette: “Shove the Bartholdi statue, torch and all, into the ocean until the ‘liberty’ of this country is such as to make it possible for an industrious and inoffensive colored man in the South to earn a respectable living for himself and family … The idea of the ‘liberty’ of this country ‘enlightening the world,’ or even Patagonia, is ridiculous in the extreme.”

W.E.B. Du Bois also mentioned this in his autobiography, recalling seeing the statue upon arriving back in the United States in 1894 after two years in Europe: “I know not what multitude of emotions surged in the others, but I had to recall [a] mischievous little French girl whose eyes twinkled as she said: ‘Oh, yes, the Statue of Liberty! With its back toward America, and its face toward France!’”

There were immigrants on board that ship with Du Bois, but he didn’t talk to any of them. The ship was segregated.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/hist...igrants/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.73fd61f9863b

This has got to be the biggest crop of S$$T I have ever read. Really the SOL was for slaves.

 

[Al Mackey]

Lady Liberty was inspired by the end of the Civil War and emancipation. The connection to immigration came later.


Gillian Brockell
May 23 at 7:30 AM

The new Statue of Liberty Museum in New York Harbor boasts a number of treasures: the original torch, which was replaced in the 1980s; an unoxidized (read: not green) copper replica of Lady Liberty’s face; and recordings of immigrants describing the sight of the 305-foot monument.

It also revives an aspect of the statue’s long-forgotten history: Lady Liberty was originally designed to celebrate the end of slavery, not the arrival of immigrants. Ellis Island, the inspection station through which million of immigrants passed, didn’t open until six years after the statue was unveiled in 1886. The plaque with the famous Emma Lazarus poem wasn’t added until 1903.

“One of the first meanings [of the statue] had to do with abolition, but it’s a meaning that didn’t stick,” Edward Berenson, a history professor at New York University and author of the book “The Statue of Liberty: A Transatlantic Story,” said in an interview with The Washington Post.

“They talked about the idea of creating some kind of commemorative gift that would recognize the importance of the liberation of the slaves,” Berenson said.

theory has her face being adapted from a statue Bartholdi had proposed for the Suez Canal, meaning her visage could resemble that of an Egyptian woman. The Times reported she was based on the Roman goddess Libertas, who typically wore the type of cap worn by freed Roman slaves.

In the final model, Lady Liberty holds a tablet inscribed with the Roman numerals for July 4, 1776. The broken chains are still there though, beneath her feet, “but they’re not all that visible,” Berenson said.

National Park Service. And sailing into New York Harbor, he spotted the perfect location for it: Bedloe’s Island, then occupied by the crumbling Fort Wood.

Fundraising in both France and the United States took awhile, and according to the NPS, Bartholdi cast the project in the broadest terms possible to widen the net of potential donors. He also built the torch-bearing arm to tour around and inspire people to open up their wallets.

Left to right: The bust of the Statue of Liberty on display in Paris in 1884 before it was shipped to the United States. The statue towers over Paris rooftops in 1884. The right arm of the statue on display in Philadelphia in 1876. (AP)

Bartholdi finished building the statue in Paris in 1884. Two years later, he oversaw its reconstruction in New York. “Liberty Enlightening the World” was “unveiled” on Oct. 28, 1886 — but that did not involve a very big sheet. Instead, there were fireworks, a military parade, and Bartholdi climbing to the top and pulling a French flag from his muse’s face.

By then, “the original meaning of the abolition of slavery had pretty much gotten lost,” Berenson said, going unmentioned in newspaper coverage.

In fact, black newspapers railed against it as meaningless and hypocritical. By 1886, Reconstruction had been crushed, the Supreme Court had rolled back civil rights protections, and Jim Crow laws were tightening their grip.

In his book, Berenson quotes an 1886 editorial in the black newspaper the Cleveland Gazette: “Shove the Bartholdi statue, torch and all, into the ocean until the ‘liberty’ of this country is such as to make it possible for an industrious and inoffensive colored man in the South to earn a respectable living for himself and family … The idea of the ‘liberty’ of this country ‘enlightening the world,’ or even Patagonia, is ridiculous in the extreme.”

W.E.B. Du Bois also mentioned this in his autobiography, recalling seeing the statue upon arriving back in the United States in 1894 after two years in Europe: “I know not what multitude of emotions surged in the others, but I had to recall [a] mischievous little French girl whose eyes twinkled as she said: ‘Oh, yes, the Statue of Liberty! With its back toward America, and its face toward France!’”

There were immigrants on board that ship with Du Bois, but he didn’t talk to any of them. The ship was segregated.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/hist...igrants/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.73fd61f9863b

This has got to be the biggest crop of S$$T I have ever read. Really the SOL was for slaves.

Time to educate yourself. 

"[font=Arial, sans-serif]In 1865, a French political intellectual and anti-slavery activist named [/font][font=Arial, sans-serif]Edouard de Laboulaye[/font][font=Arial, sans-serif] proposed that a statue representing liberty be built for the United States. This monument would honor the United States' centennial of independence and the friendship with France. French sculptor [/font][font=Arial, sans-serif]Auguste Bartholdi[/font][font=Arial, sans-serif]supported Laboulaye's idea and in 1870 began designing the statue of 'Liberty Enlightening the World.' "[/font]

https://www.nps.gov/stli/learn/historyculture/places_creating_statue.htm


"In 1865, de Laboulaye proposed creating a monument for the United States. The recent Union victory in the Civil War, which reaffirmed the United States' ideals of freedom and democracy, served as a platform for de Laboulaye to argue that honoring the United States would strengthen the cause for democracy in France. As the president of the French Anti-Slavery Society, de Laboulaye believed that the passage of the 13th Amendment (abolishing slavery in the U.S., 1865) was a milestone and it proved that justice and liberty for all was possible. Ten years later, with the help of friend and sculptor Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi, de Laboulaye turned his proposal into a reality. In September 1875, he announced the project and the formation of the Franco-American Union as its fundraising arm. With the announcement, the statue was given a name, Liberty Enlightening the World. The French people would finance the statue; the American people would be expected to pay for the pedestal."

https://www.nps.gov/stli/learn/historyculture/edouard-de-laboulaye.htm

 

[5fish]

I found the article that shows many of New York old families made their money off slavery...

Link: https://www.theroot.com/how-slave-labor-made-new-york-1790895122

The very name "Wall Street" is born of slavery, with enslaved Africans building a wall in 1653 to protect Dutch settlers from Indian raids. This walkway and wooden fence, made up of pointed logs and running river to river, later was known as Wall Street, the home of world finance. Enslaved and free Africans were largely responsible for the construction of the early city,

Pier 17 on the East River was a disembarkation point, as were all other slips and docks along lower Manhattan where the Hudson and East rivers rippled by. Today the pier is known as the South Street Seaport, a popular destination for gift-buying tourists who just happen to be visiting where enslaved Africans first touched land in chains

John Jacob Astor, who was born in Germany in 1763, became America's first multimillionaire, making his fortune in furs, the China trade and cotton transportation, part of the slave trade.

Moses Taylor, who helped finance the illegal slave trade, had his offices at 55 South Street, now part of the 111 Wall Street complex, his estate was worth $40 million to $50 million, or roughly $44 billion in current calculations.

Philip Livingston of Dutchess County, just north of New York City, was "probably the New York merchant most involved in the trans-Atlantic slave trade." Livingston, a signer of the Declaration of Independence,

Henry Lehman and his two brothers, Mayer and Emanuel — who had emigrated from Germany to Alabama and, by 1850, formed Lehman Brothers, a merchandising business that quickly evolved into a cotton-brokerage firm. In 1870 the two surviving brothers moved to New York and helped establish the New York Cotton Exchange, the first commodities-futures trading venture.

Charles L. Tiffany, got the financing to open a fancy-goods store in 1837 at 259 Broadway from his father, who operated a cotton mill in eastern Connecticut using cotton picked by Southern slave labor.

 

[MattL]

I found the article that shows many of New York old families made their money off slavery...

Link: https://www.theroot.com/how-slave-labor-made-new-york-1790895122

The very name "Wall Street" is born of slavery, with enslaved Africans building a wall in 1653 to protect Dutch settlers from Indian raids. This walkway and wooden fence, made up of pointed logs and running river to river, later was known as Wall Street, the home of world finance. Enslaved and free Africans were largely responsible for the construction of the early city,

Pier 17 on the East River was a disembarkation point, as were all other slips and docks along lower Manhattan where the Hudson and East rivers rippled by. Today the pier is known as the South Street Seaport, a popular destination for gift-buying tourists who just happen to be visiting where enslaved Africans first touched land in chains

John Jacob Astor, who was born in Germany in 1763, became America's first multimillionaire, making his fortune in furs, the China trade and cotton transportation, part of the slave trade.

Moses Taylor, who helped finance the illegal slave trade, had his offices at 55 South Street, now part of the 111 Wall Street complex, his estate was worth $40 million to $50 million, or roughly $44 billion in current calculations.

Philip Livingston of Dutchess County, just north of New York City, was "probably the New York merchant most involved in the trans-Atlantic slave trade." Livingston, a signer of the Declaration of Independence,

Henry Lehman and his two brothers, Mayer and Emanuel — who had emigrated from Germany to Alabama and, by 1850, formed Lehman Brothers, a merchandising business that quickly evolved into a cotton-brokerage firm. In 1870 the two surviving brothers moved to New York and helped establish the New York Cotton Exchange, the first commodities-futures trading venture.

Charles L. Tiffany, got the financing to open a fancy-goods store in 1837 at 259 Broadway from his father, who operated a cotton mill in eastern Connecticut using cotton picked by Southern slave labor.

Were any of these individuals involved with the Statue of Liberty?

 

[5fish]

Were any of these individuals involved with the Statue of Liberty?

Not that I know of... I just found an article about New York and slavery and thought it would be good to share. This seems to be the best thread to use...

 

[O' Be Joyful]

Not that I know of... I just found an article about New York and slavery and thought it would be good to share. This seems to be the best thread to use...

I am grateful that you added to this thread Fish and Matt, I had missed it before.

I will only add that it is popularly said by folks in New Jersey that "Lady Liberty has her back turned to us, and We are right behind Her."

 

[Matt McKeon]

Very interesting article. Thanks for sharing it.

Monuments are what people think they mean.

 

[5fish]

This is not New York story but its a good scandal from the D.C. area.... Nuns selling slaves...

Georgetown Visitation Preparatory School, it looks like the nuns used slaves to pay off school debts, tool slaves for tuition, and etc...

Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/02/opinion/sunday/nuns-slavery.html

Georgetown Visitation Preparatory School proudly stated in its official history that it was started by nuns in the early 1800s as a place where any girl could get an education — including the children of slaves, which was virtually unheard of (and illegal) at the time.

Snip... they owned 100...

The problem with that explanation, says Swarns, is that it’s not true. There’s no record of young slaves being taught anything. In fact, the intersection of the school’s history with slavery is that the sisters who founded the school owned more than 100 of them, selling “dozens” of them to pay off debts.

Snip...

As for the Georgetown Visitation nuns, the profits from slave sales would become a vital lifeline during a period of expansion. In the 1820s, the sisters embarked on a building campaign, which left them saddled with debt. To ease the financial strain, they sold at least 21 people between 1819 and 1822, the records show.

Wealthy supporters and relatives of the nuns also donated enslaved people to the convents. Meanwhile, Catholic sisters bought, sold and bartered enslaved people. Some nuns accepted slaves as payment for tuition to their schools or handed over their human property as payment for debts, records show.

That school is now working to acknowledge its sordid history and educate their students on it. Other schools in similar positions have at least reached out to descendents of the slaves in question and issued formal apologies. They can’t make up for what the nuns did 200 years ago, but they can do everything in their power to make sure that history isn’t forgotten.

Snip... broke up families...

One of the records, written in 1821 by Mother Agnes Brent, the convent’s superior, shows that she said, “Nothing else to do than to dispose of the family of Negroes.” Mother Agnes Brent said this as she sold a couple and their two children. The enslaved woman was a couple of days away from her third child being born.

Read more at World Religion News: "Nuns Sold Slaves to Pay Off Debts and Build a Chapel" https://www.worldreligionnews.com/?p=63234

This is just a summary a short summary check the link out for the full story... https://pressfrom.info/us/news/us/-...-sold-them-off-for-as-much-as-they-could.html

 

[jgoodguy]

This is not New York story but its a good scandal from the D.C. area.... Nuns selling slaves...

Georgetown Visitation Preparatory School, it looks like the nuns used slaves to pay off school debts, tool slaves for tuition, and etc...

Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/02/opinion/sunday/nuns-slavery.html

Georgetown Visitation Preparatory School proudly stated in its official history that it was started by nuns in the early 1800s as a place where any girl could get an education — including the children of slaves, which was virtually unheard of (and illegal) at the time.

Snip... they owned 100...

The problem with that explanation, says Swarns, is that it’s not true. There’s no record of young slaves being taught anything. In fact, the intersection of the school’s history with slavery is that the sisters who founded the school owned more than 100 of them, selling “dozens” of them to pay off debts.

Snip...

As for the Georgetown Visitation nuns, the profits from slave sales would become a vital lifeline during a period of expansion. In the 1820s, the sisters embarked on a building campaign, which left them saddled with debt. To ease the financial strain, they sold at least 21 people between 1819 and 1822, the records show.

Wealthy supporters and relatives of the nuns also donated enslaved people to the convents. Meanwhile, Catholic sisters bought, sold and bartered enslaved people. Some nuns accepted slaves as payment for tuition to their schools or handed over their human property as payment for debts, records show.

That school is now working to acknowledge its sordid history and educate their students on it. Other schools in similar positions have at least reached out to descendents of the slaves in question and issued formal apologies. They can’t make up for what the nuns did 200 years ago, but they can do everything in their power to make sure that history isn’t forgotten.

Snip... broke up families...

One of the records, written in 1821 by Mother Agnes Brent, the convent’s superior, shows that she said, “Nothing else to do than to dispose of the family of Negroes.” Mother Agnes Brent said this as she sold a couple and their two children. The enslaved woman was a couple of days away from her third child being born.

Read more at World Religion News: "Nuns Sold Slaves to Pay Off Debts and Build a Chapel" https://www.worldreligionnews.com/?p=63234

This is just a summary a short summary check the link out for the full story... https://pressfrom.info/us/news/us/-...-sold-them-off-for-as-much-as-they-could.html

Shows how socially acceptable slavery and that like gold, slaves were a medium of exchange at the time.

 

[O' Be Joyful]

Shows how socially acceptable slavery and that like gold, slaves were a medium of exchange at the time.

When push comes to shove $ & €'s, unfortunately almost always wins.

 

[5fish]

Here is this...

The Statue of Liberty Was Originally a Muslim Woman

"The New Colossus" was actually born in Egypt

www.smithsonianmag.com

As pointed out by The Daily Beast’s Michael Daly in a recent op-ed, the statue itself was originally intended to represent a female Egyptian peasant as a Colossus of Rhodes for the Industrial Age.

Edward Berenson, author of Statue of Liberty: A Translatlantic Story, writes that Bartholdi’s concept morphed from “a gigantic female fellah, or Arab peasant” into “a colossal goddess.” But Egypt, which had invested enormous amounts of time and money into the landmark canal, was not as eager about Bartholdi’s idea. Isma’il Pasha, the reigning khedive, rejected the plan as too costly.

Eventually, a 180-foot tall lighthouse was installed at Port Said instead. But Bartholdi was not discouraged. He eventually repurposed his concept into “Liberty Enlightening the World”—the official name for the statue that has been overlooking New York Harbor since 1886.

Was the Inspiration for the Statue of Liberty a Muslim Woman?

The initial design was not meant for New York Harbor but for the Suez Canal

www.architecturaldigest.com

The creator of the world's most famous statue was the French-born sculptor Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi. Before designing Lady Liberty, Bartholdi traveled extensively through Egypt, taking much inspiration from the colossal Nubian figures at Abu Simbel. As construction of the 120-mile-long Suez Canal neared completion in 1869, the Egyptian government considered erecting a lighthouse at the entrance to the waterway. Instead, Bartholdi submitted a design for an 86-foot-tall woman dressed in traditional Arab garb; he called her "Egypt Carrying the Light to Asia."



The sketch of Bartholdi's proposal for the Suez Canal shows a Muslim woman wearing traditional Arab clothing.