Question

Which elements of the passage can be seen in this photograph?

Five men construct and examine a wooden mold of the Statue of Liberty's left hand. Three men are working on the mold, while two men stand at the base, examining the structure. The size of the mold emphasizes the large scale of the structure.

Select each correct answer.

Wooden molds were made from the plaster sections of the statue’s surface.

A small-scale version of the statue was made before other work began.

Full-scale plaster sections were made of the statue.

Workers assembled the statue with 300,000 temporary copper rivets.

The statue was then disassembled and shipped to New York in 210 crates.

The statue was reassembled on its pedestal in just four months.

Answer 1

The statue named Liberty Enlightening the World, more commonly known as the Statue of Liberty, is quite possibly one of the most iconic monuments on Earth. It stands proudly on Liberty Island in the New York Harbor and has welcomed immigrants arriving from abroad since its dedication on October 28, 1886. The story of how the statue originated is quite spectacular.

The Statue of Liberty was a gift from France to the United States to commemorate the lasting friendship between the two nations. France provided aid to the United States during the American Revolution. In 1865, Edouard de Laboulaye, a French intellectual, suggested that France should honor the centennial of the United States with a statue that represented liberty to honor both the freedom and democracy of the United States and the legacy of President Lincoln. Laboulaye was a French liberal who believed that people had natural rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. He hoped that the French would be inspired by the United States victories and accomplishments to create their own democracy from a repressive monarchy.

The United States would be responsible for building the pedestal that the statue sat on and the French the statue itself. Auguste Bartholdi, a French sculptor, began designing the statue in 1870. He later sought the assistance of Gustave Eiffel, the French engineer famed for designing the Eiffel Tower, to design the internal structure and form of the statue. It was not until 1876, however, that the actual construction of the statue began.

Bartholdi’s design started with a small-scale model of the statue. Then, the craftsmen from Gaget, Gauthier, and Company, the foundry Bartholdi had hired, increased the sizes of subsequent models until they had created a plaster model supported by a wooden frame that was about one-fourth the size of the completed statue. During this process, Bartholdi made slight changes to the sculpture for aesthetic purposes. This model was then divided up into 300 sections, and each section was enlarged to four times its original size using a process called “pointing up.” Pointing up is a mathematical process that requires thousands of measurements and verifications. From these 300 full-scale plaster sections, wooden molds were made of the statue's surface. Then, using a method called repousse, workers hammered copper sheets into these wooden molds. The copper sheets were about one-tenth of an inch in thickness and had to be heated to create more complicated shapes. Two-inch wide wrought iron bands were fit inside each of the copper sections to give it support. Gustave Eiffel, designed an internal iron framework onto which the giant copper plates of Bartholdi’s sculpture would ultimately be attached in final construction. Eiffel’s internal framework was designed to allow the statue’s copper “skin” sections to move independently, yet still remain standing. This allowance for movement would be very important as the statue needed to be somewhat flexible because it would be subject to harsh weather and wind in the New York Harbor. The workers assembled the statue in Paris by using temporary rivets to connect each of the copper plates. The statue was then disassembled and shipped to New York in 210 crates aboard the French Navy steamship Isère.

The crates containing the parts of the statue arrived in New York in 1885. However, it was not until 1886 that the reconstruction of the statue began because the pedestal upon which the statue would stand was not yet complete. In 1844, architect Richard M. Hunt designed the statue’s granite pedestal. When reconstruction finally began, the first piece that was assembled was Gustave Eiffel’s internal iron framework. Workers were then able to put together the rest of the statue without the use of exterior scaffolding. The statue was successfully reassembled in four months and contained 100 tons of copper plate and 300,000 copper rivets. President Grover Cleveland finally dedicated the Statue of Liberty to the citizens of the United States on October 28, 1886.