Before the Statue of Liberty was complete, Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi built its most important feature first: the torch. Rare photographs reveal how craftsmen used wood, plaster, and copper to create the giant hand and torch that would become an enduring symbol of freedom.
TRANSCRIPT
He had the original idea of "Liberty Enlightening the World" and so for him, the torch was the most important part of the-- of the Statue of Liberty, and that's why he built it first.
Narrator: Bartholdi commissions photographs to reproduce and sell, to raise money.
They are the only visual record of the work in progress.
Bertrand Lemoine: [Speaking French] [English dub] It is a series of photographs that illustrate the different stages of the works.
And here we have a truly invaluable record of how the statue was built.
Narrator: This image shows Bartholdi with the first stage of the hand.
Small wooden strips are nailed to a frame in a rough shape.
Then plaster is layered on top to create the exact form.
Bertrand Lemoine: [English dub] Bartholdi is there in Gaget's workshop to check, correct, and see if it is satisfactory to the eye.
The plaster dries quite quickly.
It can be corrected and spread fairly easily.
Narrator: The next step is to make a precise mold of the full-size plaster model using wooden boards-- a template, essentially, of the hand and torch.
Bertrand Lemoine: [Speaking French] [English dub] And on this wooden template, we shape a fairly thin sheet of copper, around an eighth of an inch thick, to push the copper sheet and give it its final shape.
Narrator: It's a laborious job.
But a few months later, a moment of magic-- a giant copper hand and torch more than 20 feet high, tall enough to reach the workshop's ceiling.