The statue was unveiled on October 28, 1886, on Bedloe's Island, as President Grover Cleveland looked on and a crowd gathered by boat and shore. France had funded the figure and the United States the pedestal, and the two nations shared the cost as a token of friendship. The day was cold but bright.
The idea came from across the sea. The Frenchman Edouard de Laboulaye proposed a monument to liberty and the Union's survival after the Civil War, and Frederic Bartholdi built the copper shell while Gustave Eiffel engineered the iron frame inside, so the parts sailed in crates and rose on the harbor as a joint work of two peoples. The work was bold.
The meaning grew with the port. As steamships brought millions of immigrants past the torch, the statue became the face of arrival in America, and Emma Lazarus later fixed a poem at the base, a call to the weary and the poor of the earth to seek refuge. The poem fixed the image.
The monument still greets ships and fliers today. It survived a century of weather and a long repair for its hundredth year, and it stands as a shared sign between two republics. The gift has outlived its givers. The lady holds her light. Visitors ride the ferry to see her still.