LEGO Architecture 21042 Booklet page 4

The Gift
Édouard de Labouaye was a prominent French political
thinker and a strong supporter of President Abraham
Lincoln during the American Civil War. In 1865, he proposed
creating a monument that would be gifted to the United
States by the people of France in celebration of the recent
Union victory in the Civil War and the abolition of slavery.
Ten years later, with the help of the sculptor Frédéric-
Auguste Bartholdi, Labouaye turned his proposal into
reality and founded the Franco-American Union to raise
funds for the project. It was hoped that the French people
would finance the proposed Statue, now entitled "Liberty
Enlightening the World," while the American people would
pay for its pedestal.
On one of his trips to the U.S. to help raise funds, the sculptor
Bartholdi realized that New York was the gateway to America
and spotted the perfect location for the Statue to stand.
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Bedloe's Island was visible to every ship entering or leaving
the city's harbor and Bartholdi envisioned his statue rising
out of the star-shaped Fort Wood that already stood on the
island.
The project soon caught the imagination of many on both
sides of the Atlantic, and when the French had raised
400,000 francs the construction of the Statue finally began.