The iconic symbol of American freedom celebrates its 125th birthday on October 28.
Timothy A. Clary
AFP/Getty Images
via The Washington Post
10/28/2011
click on the image to enlarge
The New Colossus
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Related: Statue of Liberty dedication: ‘It rises a veritable goddess’
A drizzling rain and a dense fog marred the otherwise jubiliant celebrations, 125 years ago, of the Statue of Liberty’s dedication in New York Harbor. The Washington Post on Oct.r 29, 1886 dedicated a full page to breathlessly recapping “ [Frederic] Bartholdi’s Great Day: His Statute Accepted by the American People.”
In typical newspaper writing style of the time, the report reads in an understated way: “the scene.. beggars all description, one that is unprecedented in all past history, and we may almost conclude that it is one which will never be counterparted in future history.”
“Liberty, the center of the attraction, stood with her face covered by the French tri-color ready to reveal her placid countenance to the world when the proper time should come.”
The band played “Yankee Doodle” and the “Star Spangled Banner,” and President Grover Cleveland gave a speech. The reporter noted Cleveland was the only one that day to speak without notes and he accepted the gift from France in “a voice so clear and his articulation so good that all his words were heard two hundred feet away.”…
Read the complete article which contains historic drawings and photographs.
