The Statue of Liberty
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- National Park Service
The Immigrant’s Statue
The later association between the Statue of Liberty, immigration, Ellis Island, Emma Lazarus’s poem, and twentieth-century ideas of refuge and opportunity.
https://www.nps.gov/stli/learn/historyculture/the-immigrants-statue.htm - National Park Service
The French Connection
Édouard de Laboulaye’s role in the project, its relationship to republican government in France and the United States, and the meaning of Liberty Enlightening the World.
https://www.nps.gov/stli/learn/historyculture/the-french-connection.htm - National Park Service
Abolition
The monument’s connection to abolition, the Union victory, Abraham Lincoln, and the broken shackle and chain at Liberty’s feet.
https://www.nps.gov/stli/learn/historyculture/abolition.htm - Smithsonian National Museum of American History
New Americans and the Inspirational Lady in New York Harbor
The absence of immigration from Grover Cleveland’s dedication address and the monument’s gradual reinterpretation as an immigration symbol.
https://americanhistory.si.edu/explore/stories/new-americans - National Park Service
Emma Lazarus
Lazarus’s work with Jewish refugees on Ward’s Island, the pedestal fundraiser, the writing of The New Colossus, and the poem’s installation in 1903.
https://www.nps.gov/stli/learn/historyculture/emma-lazarus.htm - National Archives
Chinese Exclusion Act (1882)
The enactment and historical context of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, one year before Lazarus wrote The New Colossus.
https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/chinese-exclusion-act - National Archives
Ellis Island’s Board of Special Inquiry
Medical and legal inspection at Ellis Island, exclusion on public-charge and other grounds, and the finding that approximately 2 percent of immigrants were ultimately deported for legal or medical reasons.
https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/immigration.html - National Park Service
Frequently Asked Questions About the Statue of Liberty
The statue’s original copper-brown appearance, the roughly thirty-year development of its green patina, and the patina’s protective effect on the copper beneath it.
https://home.nps.gov/stli/planyourvisit/frequently-asked-questions-statue-of-liberty.htm