Statue of Liberty

Statue of Liberty, colossal bronze female figure rising more than 300 ft (91 m) above the sea, on Liberty Island in New York Harbor. She bears in one hand a tablet marked “July 4, 1776” and in the other a torch. Designed by the sculptor Frédéric Bartholdi, the statue was given to the United States by France on the 100th anniversary of U.S. independence. The U.S poet Emma Lazarus epitomized the statue's meaning in an inscription on its base, which reads in part:

“Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”