Liberty's Torch: The Great Adventure to Build the Statue of Liberty by Elizabeth Mitchell

Liberty's Torch: The Great Adventure to Build the Statue of Liberty Reviews

• 
  Mysteryfan

  An interesting book about how the Statue of Liberty came to America. It's an icon now but it's surprising how many people were indifferent or hostile to the project. The opening chapters focused on Bartholdi's history, including his trip to Egypt and his involvement in the disastrous Prussian conflict. He conceived the project and then spent years in fundraising and trying to get the support of influential people. Joseph Pulitzer spearheaded New York fundraising efforts, Gustave Eiffel created the skeleton, Victor Hugo supported the project. Emma Lazarus wrote her famous poem as part of a fundraising effort.
  
  It's very well researched but the stories about the fundraising got a little repetitious. So much for the myth that it was a gift from the people of France. It did make the point that projects unpopular at the time can go on to be roaring successes. And that difficulty in execution is no bar to success.
  
• 
  Arnied

  Very interesting account on one man's dream to build the Statue of Liberty. Lots of surprising characters you have heard of helped in really interesting ways. It was tough going from the start. And in the end the man who had the dream was all but forgotten except for this book. It is really an ode to him and the 15 or so years he spent trying to make HER happen. But no matter what his agenda was he knew from the beginning what the giant sculpture would represent. I just wish I was able to stroll past her majestic head as it rested on the ground at an Exposition or climb into the torch when it was the lone piece of the sculpture on tour begging for financial support. It makes one want to go back in time... so read the book... it's a wonderful trip to a place that is very much like today. A place full of madness and genius and luck.
• 
  Jen

  Solid 4.5 star book. Rounded up because all the way up until the epilogue, I was completely loving on this book.
  
  I enjoy learning things I didn't know before from the non-fiction I read. Lucky for me, I'm a product of the public education system in America, so there's a lot I don't know. Even, it seems , about the Statue of Liberty which is arguably THE symbol of America and the freedom within our borders. So shame on me for not even knowing the name of the creator of Lady Liberty until I read this book.
  
  The book does include a LOT of backstory to get to the actual story of the creation and eventual funding of the statue and her pedestal. However, I do feel that the backstory was necessary, as well as interesting and informative, to impress the reader with the scale and scope of the statue, from soup to nuts as it were.
  
  Many things in this book impressed me. The scope of research was immense. I, for one, had no idea that the idea of the statue was broached with Egypt, as a female slave to grace the entrance of the Suez Canal. The khedive of Egypt liked to think of himself as the savior of the slaves in Egypt at the time, so the statue was to flatter his misconception of his importance to the slaves. Slaves were actually treated worse during his reign than at other times. Go figure.
  
  I find it ironic that Lady Liberty started out as a female slave and ended up being the beacon of Liberty for the entire world.
  
  Also, I honestly I had no idea that France and America were once so close to one another, that a huge symbol of friendship such as the statue wasn't mind boggling at the time. Now relations between the two countries don't seem nearly so close and even at times antagonistic. It saddens me, but I honestly have to say it's most likely the fault of America, though it does take two to tango, or not. I don't know a lot about the world and relations between other countries, but America seems to me to be rather...polarizing and somewhat insistent on being in the right. Even if America IS right all of the time, which isn't possible, no one is right 100% of the time, it would maybe be beneficial to be tactful about it?
  
  Also, America wasn't overly thrilled with the idea of the statue until it went up. Money for the pedestal and set up was slooooow in coming. It just amazes me that something that seems like such a HUGE part of our country's make-up was at one point, not only nonexistent, but not celebrated or properly backed.
  
  This book was an incredible read. It should be required reading for anyone who calls themselves an American. To not know the background of one of our more important monuments really is a travesty.
  
  My thanks to NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for an eARC copy of this book to read and review.
• 
  George

  COLOSSAL.
  
  “What other work of art required an army of men clocking in every morning and working a full day, for months, years, to get the piece built? Only bridges or buildings demanded this kind of commitment.”—page 148
  
  For almost as long as I can remember, the Statue of Liberty, in New York harbor, has been my favorite icon in all the world. So, when BookBub advertised the title: Liberty’s Torch: The Great Adventure to Build the Statue of Liberty, by Elizabeth Mitchell, for $1.99, I was quick to grab it.
  
  Despite some confusing, and frequently sluggish, prose; the book is rife with interesting and informative anecdotes, asides, tidbits, and trivia about the Great Lady’s gestation. To whit: I did not know, “She would not be green for some forty years.”—page 230 I simply can’t imagine her as reddish or copper colored. She’s always been green and beautiful to me.
  
  And what an outstanding cast of promoters and supporters over the years. Some of the best minds and biggest egos in late-nineteenth century France: Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, Gustave Eiffel, Ferdinand de Lesseps, and Victor Hugo, among others. And, in the U. S., folks like Ulysses S. Grant and Joseph Pulitzer were helpful in their support.
  
  Recommendation: Perhaps not as well written as: David McCullough’s The Great Bridge: The Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge, or his Path Between the Seas: the Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914; or John Steele Gordon’s A Thread Across the Ocean: The Heroic Story of the Transatlantic Cable; but it certainly earns its place in any library with those books. A fine study in what hubris, determination and a lot of dumb luck might accomplish.
  
  “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free . . . . I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”—page 178
  
  NOOKbook edition, 291 pages
• 
  Rene

  Elizabeth Mitchell's LIBERTY'S TORCH tells the story of Frederic Bartholdi, the charismatic, visionary French sculptor, who created one of the world's most iconic works of art, the Statue of Liberty. I live in Brooklyn, and I see the statue nearly everyday from across the water, but after reading this book, I will never look at it in the same way. All of the things I thought I knew about the creation of the statue were wrong, and the real story was much more fascinating. Mitchell has a nearly magical gift for transporting a reader to another time and place, and she has done the kind of research that unearths the surprising details, rivalries, and heroics that make an historical account a delight to read. But even more than that, this is a moving story about an artist who dared to imagine a nearly impossible creation, and an investigation of the colorful characters, the unpredictable powers, and the driving talent that finally brought the statue into being. I recommend this book to anyone interested in the story of America, and to anyone interested in the combination of idealism, ego, and selflessness behind any monumental achievement. This is an inspired book by a brilliant writer.
• 
  Lisa

  Elizabeth Mitchell has crafted a quiet colossus of a story: readable, human, and witty, yet also filled with detail and told with precision. Mitchell manages to convey the turmoil of France's politics and civic life in the 19th century without ever losing sight of the complex man who created a complex symbol for a complex nation.
• 
  Robin Clayton

  I liked it buy there was a little too much detail. It was interesting to read before my first trip to NYC and tour of the statue.
• 
  Sharon

  A bit of a slow starter, Mitchell teases the reader with Bartholdi arriving in NYC and deciding Bledsoe Island, now Liberty Island, would be perfect for his colossus. It was a fifteen year odyssey of funding nightmares, engineering challenges and an American population lukewarm at most about this gift. Mitchell goes from the prologue to a slow burn of a biography of Auguste Bartholdi until he decided to move forward with Liberty Enlightening the World.
  After a disillusioning war against Prussia that robbed Bartholdi of his French hometown, and a failed Parisian revolution that destroyed chunks of his beloved Paris, Bartholdi sets out for America to revive his idea of a statue/lighthouse taller than any other. To say that Lady Liberty exists because of Bartholdi’s unstoppable drive is no exaggeration. He had big ideas about French and American friendship and their shared love of freedom to go with his colossus. And for an American Public that barely cared and had no desire to fund the building of the pedestal and dock. Just getting the unveiling party funded by Congress was a slog.
  In the end, Lady Liberty is unveiled to great fanfare but can’t be lit for another 30 years. By then, she had grown on the people and had already gained popularity as the first sight for arriving immigrants. It’s been quite a 134-year history for Lady Liberty, here’s to another 134 years!
• 
  Joshua Rivoli

  This book is very informative and very interesting in parts, but its one flaw is that it’s a little too informative. For every page of enjoyable, well-written information, there are twenty pages of long, tedious accounts of things that only serious researchers might care about. There were times during my reading experience that I was fascinated by all the work and steps that went into the end result of the Statue of Liberty. At other points, long stretches of boring minutia made me want to quit reading it.
• 
  Cherlyn

  I really liked this book, the stories within the story. If you know what the average American knows about this icon, it's just a speck on the top of the iceberg. Not only is the statue a feat of sculpture in a material not usually used, but its conception, its realization, its financing, its assembly, even its location, all came to fruition because Bertoldi never gave up on his dream. Good read.
• 
  Jade Pham Gift

  I heard of this book on NPR (I think) and checked it out from the library. It was well written and provided in details the struggles that Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi endured to bring the Statue of Liberty to America. If you appreciate the Statue of Liberty, and who wouldn't, then this book is a must read.
  
  I don't remember the exact date that I read this book, so the dates are "guesstimation" of my memory.
• 
  Marion Vermazen

  This was a very interesting book that more than anything makes you realize that if you are committed to a goal and keep working on it you will eventually get there. I was surprised how little enthusiasm there was for the project for a very long time. The Path Between the Seas by David McCullough very much complements Liberty's Torch given that Ferdinand de Lesseps and Bartholdi were contemporaries.
• 
  Alanna

  Fascinating story with a lot I did not already know. The only reason I didn't give it 5 stars is that I wish it was longer and dove deeper into the "secondary" players, such as Eiffel and Hunt. They were mentioned, but not really explored. I would have loved that too. One of the best parts is finally understanding just how critical Emma Lazarus is to the meaning of the Statue of Liberty.
• 
  Susan Tan

  A comprehensive yet boring history book that is a biography of the sculpture Bartholdi. I don't like this man personally because he is arrogant and so sure of himself so the book is hard to read quickly and was a chore. I really like the details of the engineering construction. listen to history chicks podcast episode on lady Liberty.
• 
  Jane Thompson

  Status of Liberty Story
  
  This book was written about the quest of the sculptor to build the largest sculpture . The book seemed boring to me but I read it because I was interested in the story.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• 
  Lance McNeill

  Well researched and well written
  
  I thoroughly enjoyed this detailed history of how the Statue of Liberty came to be. It’s an inspiring story. The author did a great job of bringing in many sources and viewpoints. It is certainly heavy on Bartholdi but for obvious reasons.
• 
  Kirby Davis

  An insightful look at the artist, the project, and the times. Great read.
• 
  Alexis Mokler

  I learned so much from this book but at times it was a very dry read.
• 
  Janta

  An enjoyable account of how Bartholdi came to conceive the idea for and subsequently build the Statue of Liberty.
• 
  Barb

  This non-fiction book gives the history of how the Statue of Liberty came to America through the efforts of the French sculptor, Auguste Bartholdi. The book also goes through the pertinent history of America and France at the time. The most surprising thing to me was that the people of New York City and even the rest of America were not too excited to bring Lady Liberty to America's shore. The country struggled to fund the endeavor. It would have failed many times had it not been for the persistence of the sculptor. It was President Wilson that finally articulated the importance of the Statue of Liberty as a symbol of freedom, liberty, and welcome to the immigrants.
• 
  Wendy Nelson

  Liberty’s Torch: The Great Adventure to Build the Statue of Liberty
  Mitchell, E. (2014). Liberty’s torch. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press.
  If any book about a 130-year-old statue can be called a revelation, it is this one, released in 2014 to coincide with Independence Day. Though the story of the Statue of Liberty has been told and retold, Elizabeth Mitchell digs deep into the biography of its creator, Frederick-Auguste Bartholdi, to uncover the true origins. Readers who have no interest in nineteenth-century French history might be put off by the level of detail, but understanding, for example, the Franco-Prussian war is more relevant to the history of this American symbol than one might think.
  
  Bartholdi was a household name at the time of the statue’s unveiling, though he is almost an aside today. Born in Colmar in Alsace to a family of influence, he moved to Paris as a youth with his pushy mother/agent/puppet-master, a widow who was determined that her boys succeed. Bartholdi’s older brother was eventually committed to an insane asylum, so all of Charlotte Bartholdi’s focus and energy fell to Auguste. Many of his successes were due to his mother’s actions behind the scenes, so the detail about Charlotte’s life and personality in Liberty’s Torch is sizable but important.
  
  Mitchell is clearly fascinated by the minutiae of French society and politics as well as the important people in the statue’s evolution, and each receives an extensive background treatment that can bog down a reader. Important people influence the story, including Ulysses S. Grant, Victor Hugo, Ferdinand de Lesseps (developer of the Suez Canal), Mark Twain, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Edouard de Laboulaye, who is credited with the idea for the statue. It is said that he proposed the idea of a gift to the United States to commemorate its centennial, possibly a statue. Mitchell is skeptical of this notion, noting that Bartholdi never mentioned the supposed 1861 conversation until many years later when the anecdote would serve him well in public relations. At any rate, Bartholdi ran with the idea.
  
  Bartholdi as huckster, self-promoter, and builder of colossal things—the Statue of Liberty was his biggest, but not his only big creation—is the true subject of Liberty’s Torch. He is a bit of an enigma, because his lip service towards the lofty notions of liberty and the American republic seem to have been somewhat disingenuous. Mitchell implies that he simply wanted to build a huge statue for all the world to see, and he harnessed the political winds to make it happen. It was a task that would take 15 years.
  
  Where Liberty’s Torch falls short is at the end. It tapers off not too long after the statue’s unveiling in 1886 and the failed attempts to make it into a working lighthouse as Bartholdi had promised it would be, and does not explore the evolution of one of the world’s most recognizable symbols. How the statue became a symbol of a land of immigrants instead of a symbol of French-American friendship and the general concept of liberty is also a fascinating story, but unfortunately Mitchell leaves it for another day.
  
• 
  Don LaFountaine

  I enjoyed reading this book about the creation and eventual placement of the Statue of Liberty.
  
  The books starts with the background of Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, his family, and his adventures as a youth. He created a statue that won a prize in an exhibition in Paris, and shortly thereafter went to Egypt. After viewing the pyramids and the Sphinx, he decided that he needed to create a large statue. The question was where it would go and what it would represent. Initially, he tried to have it made for khedive of Egypt. It represented a slave woman, partly because the khedive felt he did so much to emancipate slaves. However, the khedive refused.
  
  He focused his project on America, partly because a mentor of his was enamored with the country. However, not too many people on either side of the Atlantic were very interested donating the necessary money to build and transport the statue to America, or to provide the base where the statue would finally stand. It was supposed to be a "gift" from France to America, with America covering the cost of the pedestal, but the American government did not want to help. They felt it was a "New York" problem.
  
  As the Statue of Liberty now stands, it obviously was completed, though not on the initial timeline. The quaint idea that it was a gift and we happy to receive it is dispelled in these pages. There were numerous difficulties and obstacles which made it difficult to get this project completed. I found it an interesting story about a topic that is not often discussed, and I would recommend it for people who enjoy history; specifically American history.
• 
  Kimberly Hicks

  This fascinating look at how the Statue of Liberty came to rest on Bledsoe's Island in New York City's harbor is a story I thought I knew fairly well. I was wrong. I had no idea about the controversy, the lack of interest on the US side, the sculptor's reasons for designing her, and a host of other related items.
  
  This story centers around Auguste Bartholdi, the French sculptor who had a dream of building a colossus. Author Mitchell describes Bartholdi from his youth and the environment of the times, which generally was full of turbulence. France underwent several significant changes in its ruling bodies, and it was a bloody, thankless time. Bartholdi was a gifted artist but he was continually looking for work, and for validation regarding his work. He felt he would best be remembered if he could build a gigantic statue, and he was continually looking for a sponsor.
  
  This is not a stale, dry history book in the least. The action moves rapidly, and the story never drags. I was just blown away by learning that much of what I knew about the statue just wasn't true.
  
  Erected in 1886, Liberty now represents so much more than freedom to Americans. She is a beloved American idol, but she certainly was not always viewed as such.
  
  I would highly recommend this book as it was an interesting, fun read.