Prompt Cast
The History and Construction of the Statue of Liberty
TLDR The Statue of Liberty was funded by small donations from the people and was originally intended to be a gift from France to the United States. The statue was made of copper sheets affixed to a concrete structure, but Gustave Eiffel suggested using wrought iron trusses and girders instead.
Timestamped Summary
00:00
The Statue of Liberty was not a gift from the French government, but rather funded by small donations from the people, and was inspired by a man named Edouard de la boule who saw the United States as a beacon of democracy.
05:15
The Statue of Liberty was originally intended to be a gift from France to the United States in order to showcase the ideals of freedom and democracy, and the design was repurposed from a previous idea for a lighthouse in Egypt.
10:17
The designer of the Statue of Liberty, Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, traveled to the United States in 1871 to seek support and scout locations for the project, and upon seeing Bedlo Island in New York Harbor, he knew it was the perfect spot for the statue.
15:03
The hosts discuss their personal experiences with Chef Boyardee and Franco-American spaghetti before mentioning their lack of visits to the Statue of Liberty.
20:25
The foreman on the job of restoring the Statue of Liberty in 1986 admitted that he had never been to the statue before working on it, which makes the hosts feel less bad about not visiting it themselves.
25:22
The statue was made of copper sheets affixed to a concrete structure, but Gustave Eiffel suggested using trusses and girders made of wrought iron instead, which would be lighter and more flexible.
30:18
The designers used a pantograph to gradually enlarge the model of the Statue of Liberty, but when they reached a quarter size, they had to guess the rest; however, they came up with an ingenious method using string and plum lines to create reference points for the final structure, resulting in 9,000 measurements and 300 main reference points.
35:32
The designers used wood molds made from plaster casts to shape thin sheets of copper into the final pieces of the exterior of the Statue of Liberty.
40:37
The French and Americans raised funds separately, with the French having an easier time, and Joseph Pulitzer launched a successful crowdfunding campaign to raise the remaining funds needed for the pedestal.
45:38
The Statue of Liberty was dedicated on October 28th, 1886, and from then until 1924, 14 million immigrants passed by the statue.
50:53
During the restoration of the Statue of Liberty in the mid-80s, they replaced the torch and the rusting wrought iron structure with stainless steel, and now about three to four million people visit the statue each year.
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Categories:
Society & Culture
