In 1871 Frederic Auguste Bartholdi traveled to America to search for the right spot to build the statue he was going to dedicate to America. Little did he know that this statue would be one of the greatest tourist attractions in the world. He came upon an island called Bedloe's Island. The minute he saw the island, he knew that this was the place wanted to place the statue. Bartholdi decided on this island because ships coming in would have a good view and the statue would welcome the people on board. He sailed back to France to start the statue. He made various models before he found the right one.

His mother, Charlotte Bartholdi, modeled for the design of the face, and Jeanne Emilie Baheux de Puysieux modeled for the body. Bartholdi finally had the right design that he wanted. He did not start building the statue until 1876. He rented a large workshop and began his work on the statue. Auguste Eiffel designed the "skeleton" for the statue. The skin was made out of thin copper and the skeleton was made out of strong steel. The skin was attached to the skeleton with iron straps. The skeleton was designed to allow the statue to sway in the wind and expand and contract during hot and cold weather conditions. Eiffel bought a dressmaker's dummy to help him design the skeleton.

We took this picture in the Statue of Liberty Museum. It is a picture of what the statue looked like when it was being built.

This was also taken in the Statue of Liberty Museum. It shows the copper material before the air and rain made it change color.

Workers constructed wooden frames, put plaster over them and then covered them in copper. The copper they used was only 2.5 millimeters thick. The method used for making the statue was a very old method called repousse. Repousse is done by hammering thin sheets of copper onto a wooden core. The copper craftsman shaped the copper in wooden frames. When the head was finished it was displayed in Paris at the World's Fair. People paid money to go inside it. You could also go into the right arm holding the torch that was displayed in Madison Square Garden, Manhattan. France paid for the construction of the statue and America paid for the pedestal. It was built once in Paris and then rebuilt in America. It took 214 crates to move the statue. It was finished in 1886. In the end it was 305 feet tall.