Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island National Monument, New York and New Jersey

I went to a birthday party on August 25^th and fell in love with a French woman. I have seen her several times over the years, but this time we clicked. Maybe it was the celebration, maybe it was all the people flocking to her, whatever the chemistry, I was smitten. She had an entourage that accompanied this elegant lady as she landed in New York. Artists and industrialists brought her to New York from Paris. I admired her like millions of others past and present, for her call for freedom and liberty. Of course, I am talking about the Statue of Liberty.

Statue of Liberty and downtown Manhattan from the ferry to the islands (Photo by Hunner)

On the 100^th birthday of the National Park Service, I went to the islands of Liberty and Ellis to celebrate. Hand in glove, you can’t separate them. Liberty and seeking a better life, freedom and the American Dream, the Statue of Liberty is the face on our proud tradition, and Ellis Island is where millions arrived to actualize that dream.

I took a tour led by NPS Ranger Tom Tauscher around the base of the pedestal. He joked that a French lady that size is going to require a lot of maintenance. For example, the torch that is a beacon for the world has had several major alterations. At first, the light from the torch was dim. So six portholes were cut in the flame. Still dim, another 194 holes were cut. Still not enough, so in 1916, the original torch was replaced by a stained glass one, which leaked and weakened the hand and arm that held up the torch of freedom. Finally in 1986, the Lady underwent a major renovation which included removing the stained glass torch and replacing it with the current golden flame in time for the centenary of her arrival in the New York harbor.

Stained Glass torch on exhibit in the Liberty pedestal museum (Photo by Hunner)

Her original name, “Liberty Enlightening the World,” began as an idea of Edouard de Laboulaye and a group of French intellectuals who wanted to protest political repression at home. Laboulaye’s artist friend Auguste Bartholdi seized the idea of creating a new Colossus and in 1876, displayed the arm and torch at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The French public financed the statue while the American peopled funded the pedestal that the Lady stands on.

Auguste Bartholdi (From exhibit in the Liberty pedestal museum)

Newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer championed the statue by launching a fundraising campaign in his New York World. The names of all donors were published in the newspaper. Circulation increased as the public bought the daily to see their names in print, and competition among the wealthy occurred since Pulitzer also printed the amount of each donation.

Lady Liberty being built in Paris (From exhibit at Liberty pedestal museum)

A replica of Liberty's face (From exhibit at Liberty's pedestal museum)

To support a statue that stands 151 feet (46 meters) high, in 1879 Bartholdi turned to Gustave Eiffel to design the infrastructure for the copper covered lady. By 1885, the statue was completed in Paris, disassembled, sent to New York, and reassembled on Bedloe’s Island in its harbor. On October 28, 1886, Lady Liberty was dedicated. Contrary to Ranger Tom’s assertion that the lady needs a lot of maintenance, copper does not need that much. The 62,000 pounds of copper give a green coloring to Liberty and like a good sunblock, protects her from the elements.

Above, a model of Eiffel's structure to support the statue. Below, Gustave Eiffel
(From exhibit at the Liberty pedestal museum)

The meaning of Lady Liberty has evolved over the years. At first, Liberty Enlightening the World had a goal of protesting Napoleon III’s oppression in France by sending her to the United States. Once in New York, the statue’s meaning changed, especially after Ellis Island opened in 1892. As immigrants arrived, the “Mother of Exiles” greeted them with her torch of liberty and her promise of freedom and opportunity. Emma Lazarus’s poem, “The New Colossus,” has Lady Liberty saying:

Give me your tired, your poor, 

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, 

The wretched refuge of your teeming shore. 

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, 

I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

Emma Lazarus's full poem "The New Colossus" (From exhibit at the Liberty pedestal museum)

With immigration on hold during World War I, Lady Liberty served as a patriotic symbol to urge the public to buy war bonds and enlist in the armed forces. Now the Lady is used for a variety of purposes from marketing products and services to advocating for political candidates to attracting tourists. Three million people flock to her each year. She is a powerful symbol.

From Liberty Island, a short ferry ride took me to Ellis Island where I spent the afternoon. Beginning in 1892, immigrants arriving into New York had to go through Ellis. Part of the exhibits at Ellis Island illustrate how officials processed the newcomers —sometimes as many as 5,000 a day. There, arrivals were vetted for their nationality (since quotas limited people from certain countries), for how much money they had (at one point, a new law required at least $25), and for any physical or mental health issues that would make one an unfit immigrant (only 2% of the arrivals were sent back to where they came from). At times, family names were Anglicized and radically changed. It often was a confusing time.

Immigrant ship landing at Ellis Island (From Ellis Island exhibit)

The exhibits at Ellis cover the push and pull of immigration. First, why did people leave their home countries? Graphic images of war ravaged villages, destitute families living in ruined buildings, pogroms and purges, droughts and starvation illustrate what pushed people to leave their homelands. Some of the images in the galleries speak to such desperation.

Poverty in Eastern Europe (From Ellis Island exhibit) 

After making the difficult decision to leave one’s country of origin, the next question was where to go? What places pulled people to relocate and to start a new life? The promise of America from the 16^th century on served as a magnet for such aspirations. Whatever the reasons for leaving a home, millions came to North America for a better life, for freedom to pursue life, liberty, and happiness. This freedom drew people to these shores long before Lady Liberty symbolized this desire.

Granted, many millions of Africans were brought here as slaves, and for them, the dream of liberty remained at best a remote and dangerous possibility. We will explore this aspect of the American experience more fully when we visit Civil War sites.

Little Italy in New York City (From Ellis Island exhibit)

Once allowed to enter the United States, many immigrants stayed in New York. They moved into neighborhoods that became havens for them and their fellow countrymen. They worked where they could, dreamed of a better tomorrow for themselves and their children, and innovated to make that dream happen. Others spread out from the large railroad station near Ellis Island in New Jersey to farm or work in factories and raise families across the country.

Immigrants at work (From Ellis Island exhibit)

We are a stronger and more lively country for the presence and contributions of immigrants to the U.S.  Diversity is our destiny. It has been from the beginning, even before Europeans arrived on these shores. Humans need each other, both family members as well as strangers, to thrive. We culturally code-switch—we borrow from other peoples to make our lives better and more interesting. We find new ways, either by inventing something or by borrowing from a different culture. With such innovations and peoples’ motivations to have a different life, society adopts and adapts and often improves. I have written more about cultural code-switching at Contact: Encounters and the Colombian Exchange.

Ellis Island processed 12,000,000 people from 1892 to 1954 when it closed. Interestingly, that is the estimate of the number of undocumented Mexicans who now reside in the U.S. Deporting those people would be equal to sending all of those who passed through Ellis Island back to their country of origin. What would the United States be if the people who entered through Ellis Island had not built their lives and families here?

The motto of the United States is E pluribus unum – out of many, one. Out of the indigenous people who had lived here for millennia, out of the immigrants who came here, out of the slaves forced to come here, and from the descendants of all of these people, we have created one nation.

Newly arrived children (From Ellis Island exhibit)

At the birthday party for the National Park Service at Liberty Island, a Girl Scout troop stood at the base of the pedestal and sang “This Land is Your Land.” See the video at Statue of Liberty Facebook page. Rangers held up cue cards with the lyrics, and we all sang along. I got chocked up. Later I asked Melissa Cannady why they chose that song, and she replied: “Because the parks are all our lands.” Enough said.

Rangers holding up cue cards with the lyrics of "This Land is Your Land" (Photo by Hunner)

The Statue of Liberty became a National Monument in 1924. Ellis Island became part of the NPS by proclamation by President Johnson in 1965 and was reopened to the public in 1990 as the country's primary museum devoted to immigration.