Liberty; The Statute and the American Dream
The Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation, Inc., 1985. Hardcover. 304 pages. Illustrations (many in color). Afterword: Tracing the Family. Author's Note. Illustrations Credits. Index. Front board slightly bowed. This was produced with the cooperation of the National Geographic Society and a grant from the Kimberly-Clark Corporation. Ellis Island, in Upper New York Bay, was the gateway for over 12 million immigrants to the U.S. as the United States' busiest immigrant inspection station for over 60 years from 1892 until 1954. Ellis Island was opened January 1, 1892. The island was greatly expanded with land reclamation between 1892 and 1934. Before that, the much smaller original island was the site of Fort Gibson and later a naval magazine. The island was made part of the Statue of Liberty National Monument in 1965 and has hosted a museum of immigration since 1990. It was long considered part of New York, but a 1998 United States Supreme Court decision found that most of the island is in New Jersey. The south side of the island, home to the Ellis Island Immigrant Hospital, is closed to the general public and the object of restoration efforts spearheaded by Save Ellis Island. The Statue of Liberty is a colossal neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in New York Harbor. The copper statue, a gift from the people of France to the people of the United States, was designed by French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi and built by Gustave Eiffel. The statue was dedicated on October 28, 1886. The Statue of Liberty is a figure of a robed woman representing Libertas, a Roman liberty goddess. She holds a torch above her head with her right hand, and in her left hand carries a tabula ansata inscribed in Roman numerals with "JULY IV MDCCLXXVI" (July 4, 1776), the date of the U.S. Declaration of Independence. A broken chain lies at her feet. The statue became an icon of freedom and of the United States, and was a welcoming sight to immigrants arriving from abroad. The torch-bearing arm was displayed at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876, and in Madison Square Park in Manhattan from 1876 to 1882. Fundraising proved difficult and Joseph Pulitzer started a drive for donations to finish the project and attracted more than 120,000 contributors. The statue's completion was marked by New York's first ticker-tape parade and a dedication ceremony presided over by President Cleveland. Condition: Very good / Very good.
Keywords: Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, Immigrants, Refugees, Bartholdi, Americanization, Bedloe's Island, Child Labor, Lewis Hine, Assimilation, Jews, Nativism
ISBN: 0870445839
[Book #74713]
Price: $45.00