Burning Lady Liberty

The Statue of Liberty was a gift from the people of France to the people of the United States. On Liberty Island in New York Harbor, the copper... more

by M Spadecaller

Title

Burning Lady Liberty

Artist

M Spadecaller

Medium

Digital Art - Digital & Photographic Art

Description

The Statue of Liberty was a gift from the people of France to the people of the United States. On Liberty Island in New York Harbor, the copper statue was erected. On October 28, 1886, the statue's completion was marked by New York's first ticker-tape parade. In 1958, I was 8 years old when I first visited the statue and climbed the long spiral staircase to the top of the torch.
Lady Liberty holds a torch above her head with her right hand, and in her left hand carries a tablet inscribed in Roman numerals with "JULY IV MDCCLXXVI" (July 4, 1776), the date of the U.S. Declaration of Independence. At her feet lies a broken chain representing emancipation from bondage. For many years, the statue became an icon of freedom and a welcoming sight to immigrants arriving from abroad.
Plans for the construction of a granite platform to mount the statue were drafted. In 1882, fundraising for the project commenced. The committee organized several money-raising events. As part of one such effort poet Emma Lazarus was asked to donate an original work. She initially declined. At the time, she was involved in aiding refugees to New York who had fled anti-Semitic pogroms in eastern Europe. She saw a way to express her empathy for these refugees in terms of the statue. The resulting sonnet, "The New Colossus", including the iconic lines, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free", is uniquely identified with the Statue of Liberty and is inscribed on a plaque in the museum in its base. My maternal grandfather and his brother were among the European refugees who had escaped the pogroms. They were young boys of ten and eleven. Their parents were killed shortly after they had boarded a tanker bound for New York.
For many years, the statue became an icon of freedom and a welcoming sight to thousands of immigrants arriving from abroad.
Thank God, Trump was not the president then, my mother would never have been born. This is the story behind the

Uploaded

June 26th, 2018