140 years since France gives the Statue of Liberty to United States
(CBS, KYMA/KECY) - On July 4, 1884, the Statue of Liberty was presented to the U.S. ambassador in Paris as a commemoration of the friendship between France and the United States.
French historian and abolitionist Édouard de Laboulaye proposed a monument in 1865 to honor the upcoming centennial of U.S. independence in 1876.
Sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi joined the project in 1870, drawing sketches of a large robed woman holding a torch. Bartholdi had previously proposed a very similar statue for the opening of the Suez Canal in Egypt.
Work on the statue formally began in France in 1875, where the statue was initially called, "Liberty Enlightening the World."
Engineer Gustave Eiffel joined the project in 1879, leading the project to completion in 1884 with the Statue of Liberty standing just over 151 feet high and weighing 225 tons.
After the July 4 presentation to Ambassador Levi Morton in Paris that year, the statue was disassembled and shipped to New York City, where it was reconstructed on New York's Ellis Island.
