Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi

Hello, my name is Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi. I am a sculptor, and I created one of the most famous statues in the entire world. My story began in a beautiful town in France called Colmar, where I was born on August 2nd, 1834. From a very young age, I loved art more than anything. When my family moved to Paris, my imagination soared. The city was a museum without walls, filled with magnificent statues and grand buildings. Everywhere I looked, I saw art that told a story. Seeing all that incredible architecture made me dream that one day, I too would become a sculptor and create something that people would remember for a very long time.

In Paris, I studied hard to become an artist. I learned how to be a painter and an architect, but my heart always belonged to sculpture, the art of making statues from stone, metal, or clay. A journey I took in 1855 changed my life forever. I traveled to Egypt and stood before the giant pyramids and the mysterious Great Sphinx. I was amazed by their enormous size and how they had stood for thousands of years. Seeing them made me want to create something just as huge and awe-inspiring. I wanted to build something that would make people stop and wonder. A year later, in 1856, I got my first chance to work on a grand scale. I created my first big public monument, a statue of a brave soldier named General Rapp. This project showed everyone that I was serious about making very large art.

The idea for my most famous work came from a conversation with a good friend. Around the year 1865, my friend Édouard de Laboulaye had a wonderful thought. He suggested that France should give a special gift to the United States. This gift would celebrate two important things: the 100th anniversary of American independence and the long friendship between our two countries. As soon as he said it, I knew this was the moment I had been waiting for since my trip to Egypt. This was my chance to build the colossal statue I had dreamed of for so long. I decided to create a giant figure of a woman holding a torch high in the air. I would call her 'Liberty Enlightening the World.' She would be a symbol of freedom for people everywhere.

Building a statue so enormous was not a simple task. We began the work in 1875, and it took many years of careful planning and hard work. I started by making small models out of clay, slowly making each one bigger and bigger to get the shape just right. But a statue that tall needed to be very strong to stand up to the wind and rain. For that, I asked for help from a brilliant engineer named Gustave Eiffel. He designed a strong iron skeleton to go inside the statue, acting like bones to hold up her copper skin. We built her in a large workshop in Paris, piece by piece. By 1884, she was fully assembled and stood tall over the rooftops of the city. Everyone could see her before we prepared her for her long journey across the ocean.

Getting my statue to her new home was a huge challenge. She was far too big to travel in one piece. We had to carefully take her apart into 350 separate pieces. Then, we packed them all into 214 giant wooden crates for the long trip across the Atlantic Ocean. While my team and I were busy with the statue, the people of America were busy, too. They worked together to raise money to build the massive stone pedestal she would stand on in New York Harbor. The journey was a success, and after she arrived, we began putting her back together. Finally, on a very exciting day, October 28th, 1886, my beautiful statue was officially dedicated. She stood proudly in her new home, a gift of friendship from France to America.

I spent my life creating art that I hoped would inspire people and tell important stories. Besides the Statue of Liberty, I created other large statues, like the powerful Lion of Belfort in France, which honored the bravery of soldiers. I lived to be 70 years old, and I am proud of the work I did. Even today, I am filled with joy to know that the Statue of Liberty still stands tall in New York Harbor. She continues to welcome people who come to America searching for a new life and reminds the world of the importance of freedom and friendship between nations.