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P101 Lady Liberty
This poster shows America’s most famous lady accompanied by the full text
of the poem The New Colossus, by Emma Lazarus (1849-1887). She wrote
it in 1883 to help raise money for the Statue of Liberty pedestal. It is now
inscribed on a plaque hanging inside that pedestal. Below her sonnet, a small
caption presents the story behind it.
Many years ago author John T. Cunningham wrote, “The Statue of Liberty
was not conceived and sculpted as a symbol of immigration, but it quickly
became so as immigrant ships passed under the statue.” However, it was
Lazarus’s poem that permanently stamped on Miss Liberty the role of unofficial
greeter of incoming immigrants. She has since become a symbol for liberty
throughout the world.
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The New Colossus
Not like the
brazen giant of Greek fame,
with conquering limbs astride from land to
land;
here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall
stand
a mighty woman with a torch,
whose flame is the imprisoned lightning,
and her name Mother of Exiles.
From her
beacon-hand glows world-wide welcome;
Her mild eyes command the air-bridged harbor
that twin cities frame.
"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!"
cries she with silent lips.
"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-tossed to
me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
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