Quiz Yourself: How Much Do You Really Know About the History of the Statue of Liberty?

1. The idea for giving America a gift from France to celebrate her centennial was born during...

a) A fifth grade history class

b) A French cabinet meeting

c) A dinner party

Party on. The answer is c), a dinner party.
During a dinner party hosted by Edouard Rene Lefebvre de Laboulaye, a scholar, abolitionist and leader dedicated to establishing a French republican government, Laboulaye lamented on the American centennial, which was only eleven years away.
He commented to his intellectual friends, "Wouldn't it be wonderful if people in France gave the United States a great monument as a lasting memorial to independence and thereby showed that the French government was also dedicated to the idea of human liberty?"

2. When Frederic-Auguste Bartoldi, the statue's designer came to America in 1871 to sell the idea, he was impressed with "the bigness" in America. He wrote home about the bigness of...

a) American's hearts

b) Peas

c) Trees

Hot, cold or nine days old, the answer is b), peas.
Bartholdi wrote home that he had found the perfect spot for the statue in the New York Harbor "where people get their first view of the New World." He also wrote "Everything in America is big... Here, even the peas are big."

3. How was money raised in France to fund the building of the statue?

a) A lottery

b) School children collected coins

c) Dinner Parties

And the winner is... a), a lottery.
Money wasn't rolling in from the French elite so someone in the Franco-American Union came up with the idea for a lottery. Valuable prizes, including two works by Bartholdi himself, were highly coveted.

4. The statue was not ready for the centennial celebration in 1876, but Bartholdi accompanied a portion of the statue to America for a preview. For 50 cents, visitors could climb into what part of the statue?

a) Her crown

b) Her arm

c) Her feet

Bartholdi came to America armed with Liberty's arm, b). The 30-foot arm of traveled to Philadelphia where visitors could climb a steel ladder to the balcony around the torch. Her stunning copper head was also unveiled at a fair in Philadelphia and was a sensation. However, the preview did little to boost fund raising efforts in America for the stand needed to embrace the coming statue.

5. The title of the statue is...

a) The Statue of Liberty

b) Liberty Enlightening the World

c) Lady Liberty

The official title of the statue is b) Liberty Enlightening the World, although she is most well known as The Statue of Liberty and often referred to by her nickname, Lady Liberty.

How "enlightened" were you of the history of Liberty Enlightening the World?