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Emma Lazarus |
Emma Lazarus was born to an old patrician family in New York but devoted to helping other Jews escape the pogroms and persecutions of Eastern Europe. Her bold poetry and essays caught the attention of the committee that was erecting Bartholdi’s new Statue of Liberty, and in 1883 they hired her to write a poem they could use in their fundraising. Lazarus died of Hodgkin’s Lymphoma soon after, but years later, philanthropist Georgina Schuyler, who had known Lazarus, found the poem again and campaigned to have the last five lines included as a plaque inside the statue, a tribute to her old friend.
Over the years those lines became the defining message of the statue itself, and in 1945 the whole sonnet was placed over the statue’s main entrance. Bartholdi’s original vision had been that the statue would encourage the downtrodden in other countries to rise up and claim their freedom, as America had done. But Lazarus’ poem invited them to America instead, completely changing the statue’s message and significance.
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Immortal Poets: Their Lives and Verse, by Christopher Burns |