- [Narrator] A 225-ton symbol of freedom.
Visited by more than 175 million.
- The Statue of Liberty is so iconic.
People don't think of the metal and the sweat
that went into creating it.
(suspenseful music)
- [Narrator] Her story begins 150 years ago
in an unlikely place,
with an unknown artist hellbent
on creating the tallest statue of all time.
- It's something he has to do with his life.
- [Narrator] It's a puzzle that takes 20 years to solve.
- It was an engineering project
more like a building than a work of art.
- [Narrator] How does she get her shape?
- Excuse me, Mr. Eiffel?
- The inside the Statue of Liberty looks
like the Eiffel Tower.
- [Narrator] Her signature color.
- When it was first built,
it Looked like a penny.
- [Narrator] What other secrets does she hold?
- His face is near identical to the face
of the Statue of Liberty.
- [Narrator] And how does it nearly end?
- Stop!
- [Narrator] In disaster?
- We need to really understand
what kind of audacity it took for Bartholdi
to keep trying to make the statue.
- [Narrator] This is the surprising story
(dramatic music)
of Liberty rising.
(dramatic music)
It's 1865.
In the United States,
the Civil War has 750,000 soldiers dead.
- The conflict really pivots on the question
whether the United States can truly be a democratic republic
and still have an institution like human bondage.
The answer to the question is a resounding no.
- [Narrator] Six days after it ends,
President Abraham Lincoln is assassinated.
(dramatic music)
News that reverberates around the world.
(birds chirping)
(suspenseful music)
Especially in France.
Famous French author, Edouard Rene de Laboulaye,
is particularly outspoken about his love of democracy,
donating to United States anti-slavery efforts
and singing America's praises in his books.
- Laboulaye and his friends were fanboys
of the American experiment.
- There was nothing more important to him
than individual liberty and the United States had it.
France did not.
- [Narrator] 75 years after its own revolution,
France is now a dictatorship.
(dramatic music)
- The very person they elect as president,
the nephew of the Emperor Napoleon,
overthrows the Republic to establish himself
as the new emperor,
calling himself Napoleon III.
- Those who believed
in the original values of the French Revolution
are under the thumb of Napoleon III.
And they see in the defeat of the Confederacy,
the capacity to revive their values of freedom.
(dramatic music)
- [Narrator] Laboulaye has regular dinner parties,
where he and his guests plot to resurrect French democracy.
This time, he's invited an up-and-coming artist.
- Here he is!
Friends, meet Auguste Bartholdi.
- [Narrator] Frederic Auguste Bartholdi
is a 31-year-old sculptor trying
to make his mark in the art world.
(dramatic music)
- There are times when a dinner really changes
the course of history.
And this dinner party was one of those times.
- There is a whole assembly of great men there, you know,
to talk over all the ideas of the time.
And they're thinking,
we need to send something over to the United States
that will show how much we respect Abraham Lincoln
and the ending of slavery there.
- We'll build them a monument!
Something that shows we have a bond
with the American people. (suspenseful music)
And you're going to build it.
(people cheering)
- [Narrator] Bartholdi is an unlikely choice.
So far, he's shown little sign of greatness.
(suspenseful music)
He starts his career in the 1850s,
trying his hand at painting.
- Bartholdi was a mediocre painter.
He was always a visual artist,
but perhaps not the best in class.
(suspenseful music)
- [Narrator] In 1855,
Bartholdi's mother uses family connections
to get him a job using a different skill,
building the statue of a French war hero
for a government exhibit.
But he's in over his head. (suspenseful music)
- By the time he's done with this thing,
it's about 25 feet, including the pedestal.
It can barely fit out of his studio
with a one-inch clearance through the doorway.
- When it was delivered to the venue,
everyone's like, we don't have that big of a door.
We have a problem.
We're gonna have to leave this at the entrance.
Oh.
That is the most prominent place at this exhibition.
- For Bartholdi, this is the lesson
that if you build something a little bit too big,
everyone will notice it. (suspenseful music)
- [Narrator] 10 years later,
Laboulaye's proposal is too late.
Bartholdi already has another big job in his sights.
- Egypt is creating the Suez Canal.
The greatest technological wonder of the time.
- The Suez Canal cuts the distance
between Asia and Europe in more than half.
Imagine connecting East and West for the first time
in that way.
- [Narrator] Over 40 years before the Panama Canal,
Bartholdi is pitching the idea of a monumental statue
for the waterway's entrance.
- This is a time of enormous growth,
intellectually and commercially, across the world.
And it is a rediscovery also of ancient ideas.
And that included the colossal statues.
- [Narrator] At the time,
the ancient Greek Colossus of Rhodes
is considered the tallest statue in history
at 108 feet or about 10 stories.
By the 19th century,
few structures of any kind reach that height.
- Bartholdi is an extremely ambitious person,
but it's not for money.
He's coming from sort of Mason culture
that you didn't have any kind of afterlife
you were going to go to.
Therefore, you have a lot of people
who have this idea of creating some wonder,
something that will outlast them
and be their gift of immortality.
- [Narrator] Bartholdi's design shows
an ancient enslaved woman holding a lantern,
a nod to Egypt's recent abolition of slavery.
- The design that Bartholdi comes up with
for the Suez Canal statue is a first draft
for the Statue of Liberty.
There are many similarities between the two.
A female holding a torch, wearing a robe.
- [Narrator] At 148 feet, more than 13 stories,
it would dwarf the Greek Colossus
to be the tallest statue in recorded history.
(dramatic music)
Bartholdi takes his unsolicited pitch
to the mastermind of the canal,
famous French statesman, Ferdinand de Lesseps.
- It's a terrible idea, as far as de Lesseps is concerned.
Why does de Lesseps want Bartholdi to come in
and somehow be the cherry on top of his great project?
(suspenseful music)
- I'm late for a party.
(shoes clicking)
(suspenseful music)
- He's filled with despair
that this is not really going to happen.
And he has to go back to the drawing board.
Literally.
- [Narrator] This rejection alters the course of history,
putting Bartholdi on the path of a project
that will use over 50 million pounds of metal and concrete
to create the figure that will greet
over one 75 million visitors across 130 years
and counting. (suspenseful music)
But for now, he's at square one.
(suspenseful music)
- Bartholdi thinks about the idea
that Laboulaye had once put out there
and thinks, I'm going to America.
And I'm gonna make this happen.
(suspenseful music)
- [Narrator] In June of 1871,
Bartholdi sets out for the United States
on the trip that will change his life.
- Bartholdi doesn't have a plan.
Doesn't have the money to do this.
He doesn't even know
where the ultimate location is going to be.
And he doesn't care.
He just wants to put this marker down on the planet
and leave it there for all time.
(dramatic music)
(suspenseful music)
- [Narrator] In 1871, French artist,
Frederic Auguste Bartholdi arrives in New York City
with no money or designed
to pitch his idea of building the world's tallest statue.
- He had never visited the country.
He didn't know what it looked like.
He didn't know where to place a statue of this size.
- [Narrator] But before he even steps off the boat,
Bartholdi spots the ideal location.
Today, we know it as Liberty Island.
But in 1871, it's called Bedloe's Island,
a nondescript place New Yorkers largely ignore.
- It's a small island that held Fort Wood.
It was a military fort that was no longer in use.
So it was abandoned.
- Bedloe's Island is situated in such a place
that, as you come into New York Harbor, it's very prominent.
- To Bartholdi, it's the perfect stage for his statue.
A gift from France to the U.S.
But now he needs to convince the right people.
- The only letters of introduction
that he has are from Laboulaye
and people that he knew from the abolitionist struggle.
So the idea that these connections
could ultimately lead to the approval of the statue,
it almost seems preposterous.
- [Narrator] But after just a few weeks,
Edouard de Laboulaye's contacts lead him
to a remote beach cottage.
(waves whooshing) (birds chirping)
(suspenseful music)
- Mr. President, thank you for seeing me.
- [Narrator] It's the summer home
of president Ulysses S. Grant,
two years into his first term.
- You know, one of the striking things,
when you look back at that part of the 19th century
was how almost ridiculously accessible presidents could be.
- You could find the president of the United States out
and about, walking the city.
That would never happen today.
- [Narrator] Bartholdi asks permission
to place his 13-story monument on Bedloe's Island
and shows the Suez Canal design as a sample of his work.
- There are dreamers, and then there's Bartholdi.
No real idea of how it's gonna be paid for.
- [Narrator] Bartholdi impulsively makes a guarantee.
The French have the money to build the statue.
(suspenseful music)
- And he actually gets a commitment
from the President of the United States no less.
- President Grant said, you provide the statue
and I will see if Congress would give you that island.
(dramatic music)
- Bartholdi just assumes, hey,
the President of the United States has said yes.
Clearly I got it made in the shade, right?
- I mean, I think delusion was the key ingredient
of this entire project.
Delusion and a stubbornness of will.
(suspenseful music)
- [Narrator] Back in France,
Bartholdi struggles with no money and no fresh design.
So he reworks the Suez idea.
(suspenseful music)
- The Suez Canal statue is the prototype
of the Statue of Liberty.
I mean, there's no question.
- But the veiled headdress isn't right for his new theme.
Bartholdi needs a different direction.
(suspenseful music)
- There's a depiction of France with a diadem crown,
and that sticks with him.
You find it in his archives
that he has a photograph of that.
It's a classical form that shows this kind of rays of light.
- [Narrator] Bartholdi calls his creation
Liberty Enlightening the World.
And amazingly, he decides to go even bigger.
(suspenseful music)
He puts her on a pedestal,
making the statue over 300 feet in total,
nearly three times as tall as the Colossus of Rhodes.
(suspenseful music)
But Bartholdi still has a major money problem.
(birds chirping) (suspenseful music)
With the added pedestal,
the statue is expected to cost well over 10 million
in today's dollars.
So Bartholdi calls in Edouard de Laboulaye
and Ferdinand de Lesseps for help.
- The plan has to split the financing.
France covers the statue and America pays for the pedestal.
(suspenseful music)
- And the Americans agreed to that?
- Not exactly.
- But we've got a commitment from France?
- Yes, if we can pay for it.
- The Statue of Liberty would never be publicly funded.
While everyone was enamored with the idea,
no one wanted to pay for it.
- The Statue of Liberty is not practical
and it is not functional.
- Other projects were meant for the expansion
of the modern world,
for improvement of the economy and commerce.
And the Statue of Liberty serves no other purpose
than to be a statue.
(suspenseful music)
- [Narrator] The group launches
a public fundraising campaign in France.
But in the next two years,
they can only raise a quarter
of the statue's estimated cost.
And they're out another crossroads.
(suspenseful music)
Until Bartholdi sees an opportunity across the ocean.
(suspenseful music)
In one year,
the U.S. will hold its first World's Fair in Philadelphia,
marking 100 years as a nation.
Millions will attend this Centennial Exposition
and Bartholdi devises a unique way to harness it.
- So Bartholdi needed proof of concept, right?
If he's gonna convince the Americans
to get involved and to build this pedestal,
he's going to actually need to build a little bit
of the Statue of Liberty.
(suspenseful music)
- [Edouard] You can't just build part of a statue.
- People can't imagine the scale of what we're planning.
They need to see our vision.
Or part of it.
- What if we don't raise the rest of the money?
- We won't if we don't do this.
- What part of the statue do you wanna build?
(suspenseful music)
- [Narrator] It's a risky strategy.
If the full statue is never finished,
the money they've raised is lost
and there's no turning back.
- You heard the man.
What part?
(suspenseful music)
- [Narrator] It's 1875.
Frederic August Bartholdi is using
what little money his French partners have collected
to build part of the Statue of Liberty.
A desperate attempt to demonstrate its potential
at the United States' centennial celebration,
only five months away.
- This would be the perfect time to showcase
what his vision for the statue is,
and probably get a lot more people behind it
and their pocketbooks.
- [Narrator] He's decided to construct
the hand holding the torch.
- I mean, it's the Liberty Enlightening the World.
And so to have the torch says it all.
And it's also beautiful.
And it's also dramatic.
(suspenseful music)
- [Narrator] Bartholdi will hammer copper
into the shapes of the flames.
He plans to gild them with gold
and illuminate them with floodlights.
But he has an even bigger thrill in mind.
- He was planning to use every fundraising apparatus
that he could.
And the way to do that would be to sell tickets
and let them go up into the torch
and walk around the flame.
- [Narrator] Patrons will climb a 40 ladder,
the width of a fire escape,
to a balcony surrounding the flame.
But to build just part of the statue to scale,
Bartholdi must figure out how to construct the whole thing.
- This project was something unlike any previous sculpture.
You couldn't just cast it out of bronze.
You couldn't carve it out of a single block of marble.
It had to be constructed.
It was an engineering project more like a building
than a work of art.
(suspenseful music)
- You need someone who is more or less an architect
in order to make it stand it up.
Not necessarily an artist, like Bartholdi.
(suspenseful music)
(knocking on door)
- [Bartholdi] Good afternoon, professor.
- Auguste Bartholdi.
I have been reading about your statue.
- Which is why I'm here.
(suspenseful music)
- Eugene Viollet-le-Duc is a former mentor of Bartholdi.
And this is a guy who knows his math.
- [Michelle] He was charged
with creating much of the statuary in Notre Dame.
He creates the gargoyles.
- It will be impossible to assemble it as one solid piece.
- If you'll only look at the plans.
- Show me.
(suspenseful music)
- [Narrator] The statue is tall, about 13 stories, and thin.
At the time, the only structures built that high,
like some churches, have a much wider base.
Bartholdi's colossus will have to be
on the cutting edge of a new construction technique.
(suspenseful music)
- A traditional building,
you build the walls and the walls hold up the structure.
The Statue of Liberty, in effect,
one of the first examples of what, in architecture,
they call a curtain wall.
You build a strong frame first,
and then you hang the exterior wall from it.
The wall doesn't hold up the building.
The building holds up the wall.
- [Narrator] Viollet-le-Duc needs to figure out materials
for the inner frame and Liberty's exterior.
And he chooses what he knows.
A wood-frame for the inside of the statue,
covered with a layer of plaster.
And for the exterior skin, copper.
It's the most lightweight, plentiful metal available
and a striking color,
at least at first.
(suspenseful music)
- But when it rusts, and its color rust is called patina,
it has a greenish color.
And that's just copper oxide.
- [Narrator] This chemical process
takes decades to complete.
- So when it was first built,
they called it the Copper Lady.
You know, it looked like penny.
(suspenseful music)
- [Narrator] Viollet-le-Duc has used copper and wood
in statues less than 30 feet tall,
but this is five times that,
requiring 4,000 square feet and 31 tons of hammered copper,
pushed to its absolute limit.
- I think this is crazy when you pause and think about it.
You go out to that harbor and look at it.
That copper statue is about the thickness
of maybe two pennies put together.
That's it.
- The thickness of the copper on the Statue of Liberty
is as thick as it needs to be.
If it's any thicker,
it would add an immense amount of weight.
- [Narrator] But for the statue's engineers,
the question is still,
will the whole structure be strong enough?
- It has to face enormous strain and stress
of weather and wind.
- [Narrator] Bartholdi also has a design issue.
(suspenseful music)
What will Liberty hold in her left hand?
- If we look at early models of the Statue of Liberty,
Lady Liberty is actually clutching in broken chains.
in her hand.
It's inspired by the abolition of the formerly enslaved.
- But Bartholdi realizes that,
as the nation is moving further and further away
from the Civil War,
the tone, the mood has shifted in the United States.
He decides instead to pick up on the centennial
and he has inscribed in the book
that Lady Liberty is holding,
July 4th, 1776.
- [Narrator] Bartholdi doesn't abandon the chains idea.
He places them at Liberty's feet,
but it's a detail only visible from above.
- If it had maintained its original meaning of abolition,
it would become a reminder of unfinished projects
and ambitions that we still struggle with 'til this day.
(dramatic music)
- [Narrator] By March, 1876,
with the U.S. Centennial Exposition two months away,
the wooden plaster of Liberty's 13-foot hand is done.
The next step is a move
to where they will apply the final copper skin.
(suspenseful music)
- Steady.
Wait.
Stop, stop!
(hand thuds)
(suspenseful music)
- It's ruined
and is useless.
(suspenseful music)
This is not just an inconvenience.
It is a disaster.
(suspenseful music)
(water whooshing)
- Stop!
(hand thuds) (suspenseful music)
- [Narrator] It's March, 1876,
and the first piece built for the Statue of Liberty,
the hand that will bear the torch, is ruined.
There's no time to rebuild it
by the opening of the Centennial World's Fair
in Philadelphia, just weeks away.
(suspenseful music)
- They still needed funding.
And this was a way to focus light on their project.
And if they didn't make this target,
most likely the project will be dead.
(suspenseful music)
- [Narrator] But there is one fallback.
The expo lasts six months.
If they start to rebuild now,
they can race to try to make its final month.
As Bartholdi's men get back to work,
around 10 million visitors attend the fair.
American innovation takes center stage
with the debut of Alexander Graham Bell's telephone,
the Remington typewriter,
even Heinz ketchup.
- The Industrial Revolution is finally allowing them to,
if you will, maximize the incredible wealth
and resources of their country.
They are an entire continent full of possibility.
(train whistle toots) (suspenseful music)
- [Narrator] In October 1876,
with just three weeks left in the exposition,
Bartholdi's team achieves a miracle.
The hand and torch of Lady Liberty make
their debut in Philadelphia.
(people chattering)
- Liberty Enlightening the World.
- This is just one section of a much larger.
- Can I climb it?
- Of course.
50 cents.
(suspenseful music)
- 50 cents a piece, which is about $15 today.
The crowds react to Bartholdi's creation better
than he could have hoped.
- Clever move.
As you exited,
where did you come out?
Through the gift shop,
where they would sell you a photographic print,
a souvenir of where you'd been.
- He also brilliantly had little miniatures,
little depictions.
- So yes, in fact,
he invented the souvenir before the actual thing.
- [Narrator] Not only does Bartholdi
get an infusion of cash
to keep building the statue in France,
an American committee forums to fund the pedestal.
- The Americans are going to cover the cost of the pedestal
and the French will cover the cost of the statue itself.
- [Narrator] After the centennial,
the hand and torch go on display
at New York's Madison Square Park
to keep the project in the public eye
and hopefully donations flowing.
For the first time,
Bartholdi's dream feels like a possibility.
(dramatic music)
(people chattering)
Bartholdi now has enough money to build Lady Liberty's head.
And he must finalize the exact shape and contour
of the statue's most important feature.
- There's this whole debate
about who is the face of the statue?
And there is a kind of romance
to say that it is the face of his mother.
But if you actually look at the images
of his mother's face at the time,
they don't resemble the statue at all.
And when it was brought up to him, he didn't say,
yes, that is my mother's face.
(suspenseful music)
- [Narrator] The statue's face could be modeled
after another Bartholdi relative.
- Bartholdi's brother, whom he loves dearly,
is in an asylum because of struggles he's having
with his mental health.
- Bartholdi talked about wanting to do a Liberty
that seemed troubled or understood the weight
of what they were carrying.
In his files,
there's a picture that he took of his brother, Charles.
And if you study the face,
the face is near identical
to the face of the Statue of Liberty.
(suspenseful music)
- [Narrator] Bartholdi sells tickets
to watch the statue build in progress.
When the face is complete,
he displays the head at the 1878 World's Fair in Paris.
And Edouard de Laboulaye makes one final push
to send their fundraising over the top.
- The real crucial thing is he gets the French government
to actually sign off on a lottery.
That's where things really move.
(suspenseful music)
- Nearly 5 million in today's dollars is raised
in just months.
Finally enough to build the full statue.
(suspenseful music)
But in September, 1879,
the project hits a devastating setback
when Bartholdi's master engineer,
Viollet-le-Duc, dies of a cerebral hemorrhage.
- He's left without an engineer at this critical time
when he has to erect the largest statue in the world.
- Not only is he a former mentor, a friend,
he also knows how to run a big shop.
- Without this expertise, the statue may not happen.
(suspenseful music)
- [Narrator] Now, Bartholdi needs another savior.
- Excuse me, Mr. Eiffel?
(suspenseful music)
(people chattering)
- [Narrator] It's 1881.
The Statue of Liberty's engineer has died suddenly,
shutting down the project for months.
But Frederic Auguste Bartholdi may have found a replacement.
His name is Gustave Eiffel.
- Most people think of Gustave Eiffel,
and they, of course, jump to the Eiffel Tower.
That's not gonna happen until 1889.
He's known for building bridges,
arguably the best bridge builder in all of Europe.
- [Narrator] But the engineer
has never built anything like this.
And he's already faced with a huge problem.
Eugene Viollet-le-Duc's inner wooden structure.
- Viollet-le-Duc's untimely death was,
of course, heartbreaking,
but it also might have saved the Statue of Liberty
because it's not at all clear that his plan
of building the frame out of wood would have really worked.
- [Narrator] The frame will have to hold Liberty up
amid brutal conditions.
- So the Statue of Liberty with the arm out
and wearing a toga, for lack of a better term,
a lot of air can push on this thing.
- This giant copper structure is gonna act
like a sail in the wind.
Eventually, the whole thing is gonna come toppling over.
- [Narrator] Eiffel must figure out
how to make sure that never happens.
(suspenseful music)
Meanwhile, back in the U.S.,
the American committee has raised enough money
to begin construction on the huge statue pedestal.
- Charles P. Stone was the engineer chosen
to create the pedestal on the United States side.
- [Narrator] As Stone prepares to construct the pedestal
inside the walls of Fort Wood,
a system of underground bunkers presents a huge challenge.
- They discovered, to their dismay.
It's meant to stand firm against artillery.
And we are going to have a giant engineering challenge
to get through this level of reinforcement,
just to build our own structure here.
(suspenseful music)
- How far down does it go?
- It doesn't say.
- Well, this is the spot.
We'll have to make do.
(suspenseful music)
- [Narrator] For a statue of Liberty's size,
it will require a concrete pour of 54 million pounds,
the largest ever attempted to this point
(dramatic music)
In France, Gustave Eiffel finds the solution
to building a stronger inner frame in an unlikely structure.
- Eiffel was making his name building iron truss bridges.
The iron truss bridge was a new technology.
- Bridges are not statues.
Unless you think about what the bridges do.
They undergo enormous strain.
They are pretty large.
And if you took a bridge and turned it on its edge,
then you might have a tower.
(suspenseful music)
- [Narrator] Eiffel is on the cusp
of a groundbreaking innovation that will have an impact
far beyond the Statue of Liberty.
In the next decade, for the first time,
buildings begin to rise past 10 stories
and far beyond.
(suspenseful music)
- He comes up with a strategy
which revolutionized basically the way we build,
which is make an iron scaffolding.
And then the outer cladding is just purely draped
over that structure. (suspenseful music)
- [Narrator] The approach will lead
to a new class of building
that will dominate the following century.
The skyscraper.
(dramatic music)
It's also the strategy he will use
to build a 1000-foot iconic structure,
the Eiffel Tower.
But it all starts with Liberty.
- If you don't know what the inside
of the Statue of Liberty looks like,
it looks like the Eiffel tower.
- [Narrator] The plan is to build her completely,
to prove she's structurally sound.
Then disassemble her to be shipped to America.
Over 50 craftsmen
using some 90,000 individual measurements
begin to piece Liberty together
until she's too big to fit inside.
(suspenseful music)
- Picture an orange-red Lady Liberty,
because she's yet to have oxidized
and turned green,
just rising up.
- I imagine that there were more than a few people
who walked down the street
and like rubbed their eyes a little bit
because they saw this gigantic woman standing in the street.
It's almost like a Godzilla movie.
(suspenseful music)
- [Narrator] By November, 1884,
nearly a decade after Bartholdi built the hand in torch,
the full Statue of Liberty is finally standing,
But she won't reach her final home
without confronting the same problem
that's plagued her from the start.
(suspenseful music)
- It is, without a doubt,
the most fraught and difficult aspect
of making the Statue of Liberty happen.
- Tell the men to stop working.
(dramatic music)
(suspenseful music)
- [Narrator] The U.S. team building the pedestal
for the Statue of Liberty,
led by engineer Charles P. Stone,
has hit major cost overruns,
leaving them $100,000 short.
(suspenseful music)
- Stone and his efforts had to stop.
Construction halted because
the Americans didn't have the money.
- [Narrator] And Stone is running out of time.
Because, in Paris,
the Statue of Liberty is being disassembled
into more than 350 pieces,
packed in crates ranging from 150 pounds to four tons.
They'll travel in a special 70-car freight train
to a ship bound for New York.
(suspenseful music)
- Those are things that people don't normally think of.
The engineering of it goes all the way down to
how is it gonna travel?
- [Narrator] The 225 tons of parts will take 17 days
to pack in the ship's cargo hold,
carefully placed not to shift in the ocean waves.
(suspenseful music)
But they might arrive with no pedestal to stand on.
The press senses a juicy story.
(suspenseful music)
- So, I hear you're out of money.
- We're just a little behind schedule.
Nothing serious.
- So Joseph Pulitzer is a newspaper owner
who has mastered the art
of selling people sensationalized stories
that excite people's passions,
for better and for worse.
- Most Americans know the name
Joseph Pulitzer through the Pulitzer Prize,
which is one of the highest honors given
to print journalists.
Which is a bit ironic,
given the sort of journalism
that Pulitzer himself practiced.
No headline was too tawdry or salacious.
- Listen, Mr. Pulitzer,
I appreciate your interest,
but it's nothing we wanna publicize.
- You misunderstand me, Mr. Stone.
I want to help.
(suspenseful music)
- When Joseph Pulitzer is in Paris,
he sees the statue, actually as it is coming together.
And he's inspired by that.
- [Narrator] Pulitzer launches
an all-out fundraising campaign
in his newspapers with a new twist.
- He said, people of America,
send in your dollars or your pennies even,
to build this pedestal.
And I, in return, will print your name in the newspaper.
You'll be famous.
- It was really America's first
crowdsourcing Kickstarter campaign.
- [Narrator] Pulitzer's campaign raises $102,000
in just a few months,
nearly 3 million today.
Stone's men are soon working around the clock.
(suspenseful music)
- Come on!
(suspenseful music) (metal clanking)
We can do this!
- [Narrator] But it's not fast enough.
200 crates carrying Liberty arrive on Bedloe's Island
and sit there.
- This is like leaving a jigsaw puzzle out in the rain
and trying to put it together later.
The parts have misshapen,
have been warped due to exposure to the environment.
- The boxes weren't labeled really well.
The worst sort of Ikea bookshelf you can imagine.
- [Narrator] For 10 months,
Stone's men struggle to make sense of weathered parts
and confusing directions, all in French.
- Was a lot of Americans trying to interpret the system.
There were some panels leftover
and they realized later it was
that they had put the arm on slightly wrong.
So it was unstable from almost the beginning.
And it was because of a couple of missing copper panels.
- [Narrator] The original arm will later be found
to have structural issues.
The government closes off the 40-foot climb to the torch
and it remains closed today.
(suspenseful music)
(horn toots)
Back in France, Bartholdi hears horror stories
about the assembly of his statue and rushes to New York.
- If anything's wrong, we'll fix it.
- If things are as bad as they say,
I'll take my name off Liberty.
(dramatic music)
(horn toots)
(suspenseful music)
- Oh my God.
Auguste!
Come on, come and look.
(awe-inspiring music)
- [Narrator] On October 28th, 1886,
the City of New York holds
an official inauguration celebration
for the Statue of Liberty.
(people cheering)
Lady Liberty is like no statue
the world has ever known.
It's the tallest structure of any kind in New York,
visible from 25 miles away.
Her shoe size, if she needed one, would be 879.
- And it was the biggest event
that the City of New York had ever seen.
The parade was endless, bands and carriages.
- [Narrator] Throngs of spectators board ferries
to Bedloe's Island for the unveiling
of Liberty Enlightening the World.
The press is already referring to it
as the Statue of Liberty,
but many also call it the Bartholdi statue.
(suspenseful music)
- [Vendor] Photographs of Bartholdi's statue, $1!
(men laughing)
(inspirational music)
- [Eiffel] It's like the work of the old Egyptians.
- I hope it lasts as long.
- [Narrator] Frederic Auguste Bartholdi will never again
produce anything approaching the scale
of the Statue of Liberty.
But with it, his legacy is secure.
- Really what we have is one person,
this one artist, who had this vision.
And no matter how many terrible things happened,
he insisted on getting it done.
(suspenseful music)
- I really don't think Bartholdi
could have foreseen how the Statue of Liberty
would affect people immigrating to the United States.
(suspenseful music)
- The poem, "The New Colossus," with that iconic phrase,
"Give me your tired, your poor."
That poem doesn't get affixed
to the base of the pedestal until 1903.
- But for so many people for generations,
the first they glimpsed of America, of course,
would have been arriving by sea.
And that initial welcome,
that very first thing that sent a message
about what kind of place you had risked everything
to make as your home
would have been this extraordinary statue.
(dramatic music)
- So the Statue of Liberty
has become the emblem of American identity.
And it's not just Americans.
The idea of liberty and democracy
and the light of the world
has transcended our national borders.
It's become something more.
It's become human.
It's become the idea,
the perfect version of human conduct.
(dramatic music)