Download Liberty's Torch: The Great Adventure to Build the Statue of Liberty AudioBook Free
The Statue of Liberty is one of the most recognizable monuments on earth, a powerful symbol of freedom and the North american dream. For many years, the myth has persisted that the statue was a grand gift idea from France, but now Liberty's Torch unveils how she was at fact the pet project of one quixotic and visionary French sculptor, Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi. Bartholdi not only forged this 151-foot-tall colossus in a workshop in Paris and carried her over the sea, but battled to raise money for the statue and make her possible. A young sculptor motivated by a vacation to Egypt where he observed the pyramids and Sphinx, he traveled to America, hauling with him the thought of a colossal statue of a woman. There he enlisted the assistance of notable people of the age - including Ulysses S. Offer, Joseph Pulitzer, Victor Hugo, Gustave Eiffel, and Thomas Edison - to help his plan. He also developed inventive suggestions to raise money, including exhibiting the torch at the Philadelphia World's Rational and charging visitors to climb up inside. As the French and American governments dithered, Bartholdi made the statue possible by his own entrepreneurship, perspective, and determination.
