Lady Liberty was designed and built in France by sculptor Auguste Bartholdi at a cost of $250,000. This was largely paid for by donations from French citizens. The statue was then disassembled and packed into crates for shipment to America. Because there weren’t funds to build a pedestal and reassemble the statue, Lady Liberty sat unopened in New York City for a number of years.
To assist Auguste Bartholdi raise funds for the Statue of Liberty, New York World publisher Joseph Pulitzer offered to print the name of everyone who donated to the Statue of Liberty in his newspaper regardless of the amount. More than $100,000 was raised in six months from donations averaging less than $1 from more than 125,000 people. What an incredible movement!
Although the methods have changed, we are still active in fundraising. Like Joseph Pulitzer in early American history, we invite you to be a fundraiser, helping to build another movement, the Responsibility Movement.