The Statue of Liberty and Who Paid for It

On August 11, 1885, the final $100,000 was raised in the United States for the pedestal for the Statue of Liberty. An excerpt from the article:

"New York Times, often criticized the statue as folly and vehemently opposed spending any money on it.

While the French had announced that the funds for the statue were in place in 1880, by late 1882 the American donations, which would be needed to build the pedestal, were sadly lagging.

Bartholdi recalled that when the torch had first been displayed at the Philadelphia Exposition in 1876, some New Yorkers had been worried that the city of Philadelphia might wind up getting the entire statue. So Bartholdi tried to generate more rivalry in the early 1880s and floated a rumor that if New Yorkers didn’t want the statue, perhaps Boston would be happy to take it.

The ploy worked, and New Yorkers, suddenly fearful of losing the statue entirely, began holding meetings to raise money for the pedestal, which was expected to cost about $250,000. Even the New York Times dropped its opposition to the statue.

Even with the generated controversy, the cash was still slow to appear. Various events were held, including an art show, to raise money. At one point a rally was held on Wall Street. But no matter how much public cheerleading took place, the future of the statue was very much in doubt in the early 1880s.

One of the fund-raising projects, an art show, commissioned poet Emma Lazarus to write a poem related to the statue. Her sonnet "The New Colossus" would eventually link the statue to immigration in the public mind.

It was a likely possibility that the statue while being finished in Paris would never leave France as it would have no home in America.

The newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer, who had purchased The World, a New York City daily, in the early 1880s, took up the cause of the statue’s pedestal. He mounted an energetic fund drive, promising to print the name of each donor, no matter how small the donation.

Pulitzer’s audacious plan worked, and millions of people around the country began donating whatever they could. Schoolchildren across America began donating pennies. For instance, a kindergarten class in Iowa sent $1.35 to Pulitzer’s fund drive.

Pulitzer and the New York World were finally able to announce, in August 1885, that the final $100,000 for the statue’s pedestal had been raised."