“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” the Statue of Liberty’s plaque reads.  Nothing could be more American than that.

The tablet she holds is inscribed JULY IV MDCCLXXVI – Roman numerals for July 4, 1776, Independence Day, when our founding fathers signed paperwork declaring that the King of England could suck it. Nearly three centuries before anyone had heard of “freedom fries,” the colonist rebels and the French fought side-by-side against the King’s men; years after American independence had been won,  a birthday present arrived from Paris.  Sculpted by Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, she stands 151 feet high.  She’s survived terrorist threats and climate change as well as supernatural beings (Ghostbusters) floods and freeze (The Day After Tomorrow) on film. But 149 years ago we began what could be considered  the Ikea project of all time.  These are the photos:

1.  What would Freud Say?:  The face of Lady Liberty was modeled after the sculptor’s mother, Charlotte Beysser Bartholdi.

2. The crown was originally supposed to be a weird-looking cone modeled after the one given to emancipated slaves in ancient Rome.  Instead, Jefferson Davis  nixed it so as not to give American slaves the wild idea that the statue represented freedom and equality for everyone.  So it was changed.

3. Many of the workers who helped build the base of the Statue of Liberty, and assemble her, were immigrants.

4. On December 26, 1971, 15 anti-Vietnam war veterans staged a dramatic sit-in inside the statue, flying a US flag upside-down from her crown. They left two days later to comply with a federal court order.

5. At the feet of the Statue lie broken shackles, representing the destruction of oppression and tyranny. They convinced Jefferson Davis it was jewelry (ha – just kidding about that last part). 

6.  There was an old legend that the concept of the birthday present came from French law professor and politician Édouard René de Laboulaye, who, in mid-1865, said over dinner with friends:  “If a monument should rise in the United States, as a memorial to their independence, I should think it only natural if it were built by united effort—a common work of both our nations.”  But the sculptor later wrote the comment wasn’t meant as the idea, but as inspiration while Bartholdi was working on her.   (Below is the initial sculpture construction in France)

7.  The Statue of Liberty is huge, and space was hard to come by during construction in France. A well-known French engineer and architect, Gustav Eiffel – yeah, that guy – was contacted for help. He had room in his Paris shop, and he had the talent to help.  Just three years after the completion of the statue project, the Eiffel Tower went up.

BONUS

Here’s the scene from Ghostbusters II, in which Dan Aykroyd and the late Harold Ramis originally had the idea of bringing the Statue of Liberty to life as a force of evil used by Vigo. Out of respect to her, it was decided Libby would be the one to rally the city of New York, bring them together, and help the Ghostbusters save the day. Bill Murray admitted in an issue of Cinefex magazine back in 1989 that he got a little nauseous when filming it.