We also love this photo of the face of the statue being held with wooden supports, ready to be hoisted up for the reconstruction.
After years of work and delay and excitement and frustration, the statue was finally unveiled at a dedication on October 28, 1886. President Grover Cleveland led a procession through the city that included bands and marchers from across America. As the parade passed the New York Stock Exchange, traders threw ticker tape from the windows, beginning the tradition of ticker-tape parades. It is said that nearly a million people attended either the parade or unveiling.
Designer Bartholdi was invited to speak at the unveiling and dedication, but he refused, comfortable with letting his work speak for itself.
Over the following forty years, images of the Statue of Liberty in both photo and illustration were used to rally support for various campaigns, namely recruitment during World War I. In addition, the statue rapidly became the one landmark that immigrants noted as a sign of their freedom. One immigrant from Greece recalled, "I saw the Statue of Liberty. And I said to myself, Lady, you're such a beautiful! You opened your arms and you get all the foreigners here. Give me a chance to prove that I am worth it, to do something, to be someone in America. And always that statue was on my mind."
This image shows the statue and in 1927.
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