Scribd Logo
Upload

Welcome to Scribd!

  • 23 views

    The Arm of Liberty

    Uploaded by

    Gersonn Iutah Manioz
    The Statue of Liberty was designed by Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi and built with an internal structure devised by Gustave Eiffel. While originally intended to have a thick vertical arm by Eiffel, plans discovered in 2018 reveal Bartholdi made changes in red ink, adjusting the arm to be slimmer and less upright. These changes, dated after construction began, weakened the arm over time, requiring its stairway to the torch to be closed following damage from an explosion in 1916.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    The Arm of Liberty

    Uploaded by

    Gersonn Iutah Manioz
    23 views2 pages
    The Statue of Liberty was designed by Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi and built with an internal structure devised by Gustave Eiffel. While originally intended to have a thick vertical arm by Eiffel, plans discovered in 2018 reveal Bartholdi made changes in red ink, adjusting the arm to be slimmer and less upright. These changes, dated after construction began, weakened the arm over time, requiring its stairway to the torch to be closed following damage from an explosion in 1916.

    Original Title

    The arm of Liberty

    Copyright

    © © All Rights Reserved

    Available Formats

    DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Did you find this document useful?

    Is this content inappropriate?

    The Statue of Liberty was designed by Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi and built with an internal structure devised by Gustave Eiffel. While originally intended to have a thick vertical arm by Eiffel, plans discovered in 2018 reveal Bartholdi made changes in red ink, adjusting the arm to be slimmer and less upright. These changes, dated after construction began, weakened the arm over time, requiring its stairway to the torch to be closed following damage from an explosion in 1916.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    23 views2 pages

    The Arm of Liberty

    Uploaded by

    Gersonn Iutah Manioz
    The Statue of Liberty was designed by Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi and built with an internal structure devised by Gustave Eiffel. While originally intended to have a thick vertical arm by Eiffel, plans discovered in 2018 reveal Bartholdi made changes in red ink, adjusting the arm to be slimmer and less upright. These changes, dated after construction began, weakened the arm over time, requiring its stairway to the torch to be closed following damage from an explosion in 1916.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 2

    The arm of Liberty

    The Statue of Liberty is probably the most famous icon of the USA. It was built to
    celebrate the end of slavery, and later became a symbol for freedom among
    immigrants. The statue depicts Libertas, the Roman goddess of liberty. And the torch
    she carries high above her outstretched arm represents a light that guides people along
    the path to freedom. Interestingly, however, Liberty looks different from the way the
    designer first intended.

    The idea for the statue came from a poet, Édouard de Laboulaye. When the American
    Civil war ended, he wanted to commemorate the end of the slave trade with a gift. He
    and other people who opposed slavery raised money and hired a sculptor, Frédéric-
    Auguste Bartholdi, to design the statue. Bartholdi later employed the French engineer,
    Gustave Eiffel, to devise its structure. Eiffel, who would subsequently build the famous
    tower in Paris, was already a well-known designer of railway bridges. So he knew how to
    build robust structures that are flexible and safe in strong winds. This feature was
    necessary because the winds in New York harbor are extremely strong. Today, the top
    of her torch swings over 15cm when the wind is blowing at 50 miles per hour.

    Eiffel designed the statue to be built around a massive metal skeleton, similar to the
    Eiffel tower. Huge pieces of copper were fixed onto this to form its shape. Until recently,
    two copies of the plans were believed to exist. But recently, a third copy was discovered,
    which revealed some interesting information. In 2018, a map dealer bought some
    historic papers at an auction in Paris, which included original plans, calculations, and
    drawings of the statue. At first, the documents were too fragile to read. But after special
    treatment, the papers clearly showed that Eiffel’s plans had been changed by Bartholdi
    with red ink. Liberty’s arm, which was thick and vertical in Eiffel’s drawing, was adjusted
    to be slimmer, less upright, and generally more attractive than Eiffels’ design.

    The changes in the plans are dated July 28, 1882, after the construction of the tower
    had begun. We don’t know what Eiffel thought of Bartholdi’s changes. By then, Eiffel
    was working on other projects, and only his assistants were working with Bartholdi in
    New York. Maybe Bartholdi thought he could make the changes because Eiffel was not
    there and would not complain.

    However, the changes made the arm not only more attractive but also weaker, which
    has created problems over the years. At first, visitors could climb a ladder to the torch in
    Liberty’s arm, but in 1916, there was an explosion on a nearby island. It damaged the
    statue and made it unsafe, and the stairway to the torch has been closed ever since.
    During restoration work in the 1980s, engineers noticed that the structure inside
    Liberty’s head, shoulders, and arm were different from how they were shown on Eiffel’s
    plans. They thought that the builders had made mistakes, but some historians believed
    that Bartholdi had changed Eiffel’s design. The newly discovered papers confirm those
    theories.

    You might also like