From PBS-- Statue of Liberty

Statue of Liberty was built in Paris and then reassembled in America...NYC was offered the statue but local bigwigs did not want to pay for the costs of erecting it...Philadelphia and Boston were eager to have it ( and then St. Louis and Chicago got interested too)... Newspaper publisher Pulitzer started campaign to raise money from schoolchildren to have it erected on Liberty Island and they eventually did

On this day in 1886, President Grover Cleveland dedicated the Statue of Liberty in NY Harbor


The period after the Civil War was a time of great transition – and innovation – in the United States. This timeline shows the progression of the statue – from idea to reality – against the back-drop of contemporary events.

Statue Timeline		Contemporary Events
1865:
At dinner party, Edouard Laboulaye, chairman of French anti-slavery society, proposes monument to liberty and U.S. independence in centennial year (1876); sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi attends.		U.S. Civil War ends, President Abraham Lincoln assassinated; Lewis. Carroll publishes "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"; trans-Atlantic cable completed.
1867:
Bartholdi proposes huge statue of robed woman holding torch ("Egypt Bringing the Light to Asia") for opening of Suez Canal (1869); idea unsuccessful.		Russia sells Alaska to United States; Karl Marx, "Das Kapital, Part I"; Johann Strauss composes "The Blue Danube"; chemist Marie Curie born.
1870:
Bartholdi begins designing sketchy figures of "Liberty" monument		Franco-Prussian War begins; V.I. Lenin born; Charles Dickens dies; Jules Verne, "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea"; Napoleon III surrenders.
1871:
Bartholdi seeks Laboulaye's aid in trip to United States, arrives in New York (June); tours country promoting idea of Franco-American monument on Bedloe's Island in New York Harbor.		Peace of Frankfurt ends Franco-Prussian War; George Elliot,. "Middlemarch"; Albert Hall opens in London; P. T. Barnum's "Greatest. Show on Earth" circus opens in New York.
1872:
Bartholdi returns to France		U.S. Grant reelected President; James Whistler paints "Whistler's Mother"; civil war in Spain.
1875:
Franco-American Union created in France, committee approves Bartholdi's plaster model of "Liberty Enlightening the World," begins fundraising 600,000 francs; Laboulaye presents formal request to. President U.S. Grant through Ambassador Levi P. Morton to use Bedloe's Island site for monument.		Albert Schweitzer born; Mark Twain, "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer"; Georges Bizet composes "Carmen"; Hans Christian Andersen dies; Britain buys majority of Suez Canal; Captain Matthew Webb first to swim across English Channel.
1876:
Bartholdi begins constructing statue, completes hand and torch, sent to U.S. for display at Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia (August 14); Bartholdi returns to U.S. May 6; hand and torch shipped to. New York, displayed at Madison Square.		Disputed Tilden-Hayes presidential contest in U.S.; Korea becomes independent nation; writer Jack London born; writer George Sand dies; Alexander Graham Bell invents the telephone; U.S. Centennial exposition held in Philadelphia.
1877:
Outgoing President Grant signs bill designating Bedloe's Island for proposed monument (March), U.S. fundraising of $250,000 begins; Tuileries diorama unveiled; Grant visits Paris (November); statue construction continues, French fundraising continues.		Rutherford Hayes becomes U.S. president; Queen Victoria proclaimed Empress of India; Henry James, "The American"; Thomas Edison invents the phonograph; first public telephones in use in U.S.; Russia declares war on Turkey.
1878:
Statue's head and shoulders completed, displayed for first time at Paris Universal Exposition; French fundraising continues.		Treaty of Berlin; Thomas Hardy, "The Return of the Native"; Gilbert and Sullivan compose "H.M.S. Pinafore"; Salvation Army takes current name.
1879:
Statue engineer Viollet-le-Duc dies, replaced by Alexander Gustav Eiffel; French fundraising continues.		French Panama Canal Company chartered; Joseph Stalin born; Albert Einstein born; Henrik Ibsen, "A Doll's House."
1880:
Eiffel designs innovative 98-foot, 120-ton inner framework to support statue; French committee completes fundraising, U.S. fundraising continues.		James A. Garfield elected U.S. president; Lew Wallace, "Ben Hur"; educator Helen Keller born; Auguste Rodin completes "The Thinker"; Thomas Edison invents the light bulb.
1881:
Statue's copper plates completed, first rivet driven by Ambassador Morton at construction site (October 24) ; U.S. fundraising continues.		U.S. President Garfield assassinated; Fyodor Dostoevsky dies; Pablo Picasso born; Tuskegee Institute founded in Alabama.
1882:
Edouard Laboulaye dies; Ferdinand de Lesseps chairs the Union; French poet Victor Hugo visits the statue, praises its "idea"; statue's arm and torch returned from New York; U.S. fundraising languishes.		Triple Alliance formed (Austria, Germany, and Italy); Robert Louis Stevenson, "Treasure Island"; Charles Darwin dies; Franklin Delano Roosevelt born; Peter Tchaikovsky composes "1812 Overture."
1883:
Statue's assembly continues in Paris; work begins on foundation of pedestal on Bedloe's Island, designed by R. M. Hunt and supervised by General Charles Pomeroy Stone; Joseph Pulitzer purchases New York World newspaper.		Reform begins of U.S. civil service; Benito Mussolini born; Franz Kafka born; Karl Marx dies; Richard Wagner dies; first skyscraper built in Chicago (10 stories); Brooklyn Bridge opens to traffic in New York.
1884:
Statue completed, formally handed over to U.S. ownership in Paris, accepted by Ambassador Morton; (July 4); first stone laid for pedestal on Bedloe's Island; U.S. fundraising languishes; New York governor. Grover Cleveland vetoes $50,000 state appropriation.		Grover Cleveland elected U.S. president; Mark Twain, "Huckleberry Finn"; Oxford English dictionary begins publication; Harry Truman born; first deep tube (underground railroad), London; Sir Charles Parsons invents first practical steam turbine engine.
1885:
Statue disassembled, crated for shipment to U.S.; Joseph Pulitzer undertakes spectacular new push for U.S. fundraising, generates $50,000 in two months; statue crosses the Atlantic in crates, nearly sinks in storm, arrives at Bedloe's Island (June17); Bartholdi arrives in U.S. (November).		Former president Ulysses S. Grant dies; Victor Hugo dies; Gilbert and Sullivan compose "The Mikado"; Louis Pasteur devises anti-rabies vaccine; D. H. Lawrence born; Sinclair Lewis born; George Eastman manufactures coated photographic paper; golf introduced to America.
1886:
Pedestal completed; Eiffel's "skeleton" raised; decision is made to light the torch electrically; Statue of Liberty assembled; formal unveiling by Bartholdi at dedication ceremony held on Bedloe's Island (October 28), with President Grover Cleveland presiding.		Auguste Rodin completes "The Kiss"; Henry James, "The Bostonians"; hydroelectric installations begun at Niagara Falls; Canadian Pacific Railway completed; Bonaparte and Orleans families banished from France.
1903:
Words from Emma Lazarus’ poem "The New Colossus" are added to the base of the statue