How Joseph Pulitzer Saved the Statue of Liberty
It’s hard to imagine what New York City would look like without the Statue of Liberty. Yet there was a time in American history over a century ago when Lady Liberty almost ended up in Philadelphia or San Francisco. The fact that she still holds up her torch on Liberty Island in New York Harbor is a testament to the will of the American people – although the call to action came from Joseph Pulitzer, a Hungarian immigrant who came to this land and himself destitute to a new a successful newspaper publisher.
Pulitzer’s name is linked to many things: the sensational style of his newspaper’s reporting, sometimes referred to as yellow journalism; the bitter rivalry he had with William Randolph Hearst, another newspaper mogul; and of course the Pulitzer Prize, which Pulitzer set up in his will through a foundation.
He was also a galvanist who believed that print media could be used to influence people for the good of society. Perhaps the best example of this “journalism of action,” as his rival Hearst called it, is how Pulitzer handled the news that the Statue of Liberty was in danger.
In 1885 the dismantled statue was shipped to America as a gift from France. It was meant to be a symbol of American freedom and democracy, as well as a sign of the bond that was forged between the two allies during the American Revolution. France had paid for the statue in full; All it needed was a pedestal to stand on. America was on the hook to design and build the pedestal at a cost of about $ 250,000 (about $ 6.55 million in 2019).
The American Statue of Liberty Committee, charged with raising funds for the monument’s construction, raised just over half of the funds. Both New York State and the US Congress refused to do the rest. The Lady Liberty pieces ended up in a warehouse, and at some point the fundraising committee threatened to send the statue back to France if it didn’t get the funds.
This was before the advent of American philanthropy, which began around the time Andrew Carnegie published his “The Gospel of Wealth” in 1889 – an article calling on other Gilded Age millionaires to donate some of their wealth for the common good . So, if the committee wanted to get the money for its pedestal, they had to get it from the average American. The committee publicly called for donations across the country, “any amount, how big or how small”. In return for their contribution to the statue fund, the donors were promised an illustrated certificate.
But convincing Americans outside New York to open their paperbacks proved difficult. As one Indian put it, the memorial was viewed as a “New York matter” rather than a “national matter”. Another person asked why the fundraising committee was trying to “get the people of Chicago and Connecticut … to pay for the expenses New Yorkers want to avoid,” according to newspaper reports.
Several cities offered to pay for the pedestal in exchange for the exclusive right to erect the statue on their territory. An article published by the Philadelphia Press said the city would welcome the statue to Fairmount Park. San Francisco said that Lady Liberty would look beautiful standing in front of the Golden Gate Strait (the bridge that would bear the name of the strait was not yet built). Boston and Baltimore have also made offers for the statue.
Pulitzer stepped in. He sponsored small fundraisers including boxing matches, theater productions, art shows, and mini-statue of liberty sales, and published several editorials in his newspaper, The New York World (later shortened to The World). to gain sympathy for the plight of the statue.
In his most famous editorial, Pulitzer wrote: “We have to raise the money! The world is the people’s newspaper, and now it appeals to people to come up and collect the money. “
He added:
“The $ 250,000 it took to make the statue was paid for by the masses of the French people – the workers, the merchants, the shop girls, the artisans – regardless of class or condition. Let us answer in the same way. Let’s not wait for the millionaires to give us this money. It is not a gift from the millionaires of France to the millionaires of America, but a gift from the whole people of France to the whole people of America. “
Remarkably, it worked. Pulitzer received small donations from 125,000 people, totaling $ 102,000 (or about $ 2.7 million in today’s dollars). The money was sent to the Statue of Liberty Fundraising Committee and the future of the monument in New York was secured.
As a thank you to the donors, Pulitzer printed their names in his newspaper, regardless of whether they donated a cent or a dollar. This early experiment in pre-internet crowdfunding proved to be a landmark example of what average Americans could accomplish without the support of the rich.
Pulitzer’s newspaper continued to publish news of the statue’s evolution, and it did so in a most peculiar way. “In one editorial after another, the editor spoke of the statue as if it were human, and went so far as to ‘question’ her about the 1886 New York mayoral campaign,” writes Edward Berenson in The Statue of Liberty: A Transatlantic Story (she chose eventual winner Abram Hewitt over future US President Theodore Roosevelt).
The Statue of Liberty eventually became a symbol of America and American values that stretch well beyond New York Harbor. And we owe it to Pulitzer and his persuasiveness.
