{"id":86660,"date":"2017-02-13T12:01:22","date_gmt":"2017-02-13T12:01:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=86660"},"modified":"2017-02-10T19:46:51","modified_gmt":"2017-02-10T19:46:51","slug":"the-statue-of-liberty-was-originally-a-muslim-woman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2017\/02\/the-statue-of-liberty-was-originally-a-muslim-woman\/","title":{"rendered":"The Statue of Liberty Was Originally a Muslim Woman"},"content":{"rendered":"

“The New Colossus” was actually born in Egypt<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/a>

(R. Ian Lloyd\/Masterfile\/Corbis)<\/p><\/div>\n

The United States has debated immigration since the country’s\u00a0founding, and the Statue of Liberty\u2014a\u00a0potent symbol\u00a0for\u00a0immigrants\u2014is\u00a0often invoked as an argument for why we should usher in those\u00a0who seek safety and opportunity with open arms. A little-known fact about Lady Liberty adds an intriguing twist to today’s debate about refugees from the Muslim world:\u00a0As\u00a0pointed out by\u00a0The Daily Beast<\/em>\u2019s Michael Daly in a recent op-ed<\/a>,\u00a0the statue itself was originally intended to represent a female\u00a0Egyptian peasant as a Colossus of Rhodes for the Industrial Age.<\/p>\n

That might be surprising to people more familiar with the statue\u2019s French roots than its Arab ones. After all, the statue\u2019s structure was designed by Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel<\/a> (yes, that Eiffel), and Lady Liberty was given to the United States by France<\/a> for its centennial to celebrate the alliance of the two countries formed during the French Revolution.<\/p>\n

The statue\u2019s designer, Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric-Auguste Bartholdi, was also French, but he found inspiration in a very different place: Egypt. In 1855, he visited Nubian monuments at Abu Simbel<\/a>, which feature tombs guarded by gigantic colossus figures.\u00a0Bartholdi became fascinated by the ancient architecture,\u00a0developing\u00a0what the National Park Service calls<\/a> a \u201cpassion for large-scale public monuments and colossal structures.\u201d Eventually, he channeled that passion into a proposal\u00a0for the inauguration of the Suez Canal.<\/p>\n

Bartholdi envisioned a colossal monument featuring a robe-clad woman representing Egypt to stand at Port Said, the city at the northern terminus of the canal in Egypt. To prep for this undertaking,\u00a0Barry Moreno, author of multiple books about the statue, writes<\/a> that Bartholdi studied art like the Colossus, honing the concept for a figure called Libertas who would stand at the canal. \u201cTaking the form of a veiled peasant woman,\u201d writes Moreno, \u201cthe statue was to stand 86 feet high, and its pedestal was to rise to a height of 48 feet.\u201d Early models of the statue were called \u201cEgypt Carrying the Light to Asia.\u201d<\/p>\n

Edward Berenson, author of Statue of Liberty: A Translatlantic Story,<\/em>\u00a0writes<\/a> that Bartholdi\u2019s concept morphed from \u201ca gigantic female fellah<\/em>, or Arab peasant\u201d into \u201ca colossal goddess.\u201d But Egypt, which had invested enormous amounts of time and money into the landmark canal, was not as eager about Bartholdi\u2019s idea. Isma\u2019il Pasha, the reigning khedive, rejected the plan as too costly.<\/p>\n

Eventually, a 180-foot tall lighthouse was installed at Port Said instead. But Bartholdi was not discouraged. He eventually repurposed his concept into \u201cLiberty Enlightening the World\u201d<\/a>\u2014the official name for the statue that has been overlooking New York Harbor since 1886.<\/p>\n

__________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Erin Blakemore is a Boulder, Colorado-based journalist. Her work has appeared in publications like <\/em>The Washington Post, TIME, mental_floss, Popular Science and <\/em>JSTOR Daily. Learn more at erinblakemore.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 smithsonianmag.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A little-known fact about Lady Liberty adds an intriguing twist to today’s debate about refugees from the Muslim world: The statue itself was originally intended to represent a female Egyptian peasant as a Colossus of Rhodes for the Industrial Age. That might be surprising to people more familiar with the statue\u2019s French roots than its Arab ones.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anglo-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86660"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86660\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}