Emma Lazarus: The Poet of The Statue of Liberty

Even though Lazarus was a famous and critically acclaimed poet in her time, she would have likely been forgotten, if she hadn’t been asked to write a poem for a fund-raiser for the Statue of Liberty.  In turn, the 105-word sonnet has become a symbol of hope and welcome and an enduring inspiration to refugees and visitors ever since.  (A copy of the poem is at the end of the story).

Most people don’t know how the statue ended up in New York. Around 1875, Edouard de Laboulaye, a pro-abolitionist French historian proposed that France celebrate its long friendship with the United States by gifting a public work of art. The gift would be a symbol of common values that united the two countries: freedom, liberty, and democracy. It would also recognize the role that France had played in helping the United States win its independence from Great Britain.

Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, a renowned French sculptor at the time, agreed to design and build the copper and steel statue. Donations from French citizens would cover the costs, while the United States would pay for the base to display the statute.

There was a lot of enthusiasm on both sides of the Atlantic for the idea but raising the money was a harder sell. On the French side, the original goal was to have the statute completed, delivered, and installed by America’s centennial in 1876, but that deadline was much too ambitious.

It would take many more years to raise all the money, and the longer the campaign went on the more expensive the project became. By 1880, two million francs (or $400,000 at the time) had been raised from thousands of French citizens in 180 towns, villages and cities – enough money for construction to begin.

Fundraising in the United States was also a struggle. After the initial rush of enthusiasm, when it became clear that $250,000 would need to be raised for the base and pedestal, there were many voices of opposition. Leading newspapers editorialized against it, including The New York Times which called the project a “folly.”  

There was no money from the federal government because Congress couldn’t agree on a spending package and lawmakers fought over the kind of statute they wanted. In addition, New York Governor Grover Cleveland prohibited New York City from allocating dollars for the project.

Just as it had been in France, it would take a grass roots effort by ordinary citizens in America to ensure that Lady Liberty, the symbol of welcome, wouldn’t herself be homeless.

In 1883, with the construction halfway done, The Bartholdi Pedestal Fund Art Loan Exhibition asked Lazarus, Mark Twain and Walt Whitman, among others, to contribute original pieces of writing and art as items for auction. Lazarus, who had been writing and publishing since she was eighteen at first said no. At 34, she had an impressive body of work – books of poems, plays, a novel, essays that appeared regularly in newspapers and publications. “I couldn’t possibly write verses to order,” she was quoted as saying.

Emma Lazarus was a literary star from a well-to-do family. Her privileged status would not have made her an obvious choice to write a passionate poem about freedom and immigration.  She was born on July 22, 1849 in New York City to Esther and Moses Lazarus, the fourth of seven children.  A wealthy merchant, Moses had made his fortune in sugar refining. The Lazurus family was descended from Portuguese Sephardic Jews who had arrived in the city before the American Revolution.  By the 1850s, Moses was among the city’s social elite.  Along with the Vanderbilts and Franklin Roosevelt, he was a founder of the snobby Knickerbocker Club.

The family lived in the Union Square neighborhood of New York City. Emma and her siblings were home schooled by private tutors.  Emma loved poetry and languages and by 18, she had published her first collection of poems. Two years later in 1868, Lazarus met poet Ralph Waldo Emerson, who was so impressed by her talent that he became her mentor.

Through her work at American Hebrew Magazine, she learned about the pogroms in Russia and the persecution of Russian Jews who were fleeing their country, many landing in the lower East Side of New York City.  As a volunteer for the Hebrew Emigrant Society, she visited these new arrivals at the detention center on Ward’s Island (today called Roosevelt Island). She was shocked by the squalid conditions they were in and was reportedly on site when the refugees began a riot in 1882. She started a column to let people know about their plight and began advocating for better conditions and organizing relief efforts. She also gave free English lessons to immigrants.

Although Lazarus was not an observant Jew, the antisemitism that forced the mass exodus of millions of Jews from Russia stirred her to write something on their behalf.

“Until this cloud passes,” she wrote, “I have no thought, no passion, no desire, save for my people.” She saw parallels between how Jewish immigrants were mistreated and the biases against Jews she perceived among the upper class circles her family traveled in. 

So, when she turned down the invitation to donate a poem to the auction for the Statute of Liberty, she was quickly reminded that writing a poem was an opportunity to amplify her activism.  The chairwoman of the auction told Lazarus: “Think of the goddess of liberty standing on her pedestal yonder in the bay and holding the torch out to those refugees you are so fond of visiting at Ward’s Island.”

A few days later, Lazarus submitted a poem called The New Colossus. Comparing the statute to the original, male Colossus of Rhodes, Lazarus named the statute, “the mother of exiles,” who welcomed the “tired...the poor...the huddled masses yearning to breathe free...the wretched refuse of your teeming shore.”

 The New Colossus was read at the opening of the auction and sold for $1500, worth about $45,000 in today’s dollars.  It was published in both The World and The New York Times, but then was forgotten.  It was not read at the dedication of the Statue in 1886 or mentioned in press reports at the time.

Fifteen years later, Lazarus’ friend and art patron, Georgina Schuyler began a campaign to have the poem inscribed in the Statute. Since 1903, a bronze plaque with the sonnet has been part of the pedestal of the monument and a copy of it is in the Statue’s Museum.  

Lazarus never lived long enough to see her work honored. She died in 1887 of Hodgkin’s lymphoma in New York City at the age of 38.

The New Colossus

By Emma  Lazarus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

© 2023 Alice Look, © The Remarkable Women Project