If you’ve ever been to New York, you’ve probably seen it. I used to see it almost every day growing up on
Staten Island – in New York harbor. And even though its skin has turned green with age, it remains
vibrant. I’m talking, of course, about the Statue of Liberty.
This 220 tons of copper and iron is a powerful symbol of our country. Now America isn’t perfect, and we
sometimes fall short of our ideals, but the Statue of Liberty remains a part of our lives. We see it all the
time in movies, on television, and in advertisements. The statue has become so familiar that we
sometimes don’t think about it. But we should. As Neil Kotler, an historian at the Smithsonian Institute,
says, the Statue of Liberty is “a monument of breathtaking proportions.”
I’ve been fascinated with the Statue of Liberty ever since I was a kid, but I never knew just how amazing
it is until I started researching it for this speech. This morning, I’d like to tell you a bit about its
symbolism, its history, and its architecture. By the end, I hope you’ll understand why this familiar
structure is a modern marvel.
Let’s start with its symbolism, moving from the top of the statue to the bottom. At the top is the statue’s
most famous symbol – the torch. Ever since the statue was built, the torch has been a beacon to
immigrants. It’s the torch that prompted the poet Emma Lazarus to pen the famous lines that are
inscribed on the pedestal of the statue:
After the statue was finished, it was taken down as you can see here, put in boxes, and shipped to New
York, where it was reconstructed. When the statue was unveiled in New York, more than one million
people flocked to the harbor to see it. Shown in this painting, the celebration was one of the biggest in
American history. “Liberty Enlightening the World” had finally found its permanent home.
Today we take the Statue of Liberty for granted, but it was considered an architectural marvel when it
was built. If you look at the statue from the outside, it looks solid-like it’s made completely of stone. But
looks can be deceiving. The statue’s exterior is not made of stone, but of copper. And it’s only 2.4
millimeters thick-not much thicker than this penny.
Yet despite its thin copper skin, the statue stands 151 feet tall and towers 305 feet above the water, if
you include the pedestal. Think about the wind and weather that have beaten against it for 130 years.
The thin copper skin wouldn’t be able to survive without something really strong underneath. So what is
underneath?