A little-known element of the Statue of Liberty’s original design almost changed how Americans viewed the monument forever. Historians explain why the statue’s broken chains were moved out of sight and what that decision reveals about race, slavery, and reconciliation after the Civil War.
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TRANSCRIPT
Narrator: The original design had a feature that was ultimately moved to avoid controversy.
Juliette Chevée: [Speaking French] [English dub] In this first version of the drawing, the statue holds a broken piece of chain in its left hand.
Narrator: In France, this broken chain would have symbolized liberation from emperors or tyranny.
But in America it meant something else: slavery, which had torn the country apart.
Bartholdi decides to change his design.
Juliette Chevée: [Speaking French] [English dub] In this version, corrected by Bartholdi, we can see what he's done with the ink and paint to indicate the stone tablet instead of the chains.
Michele Mitchell: The significance of the chains is fascinating.
The Republican Party and the Democratic Party is starting to come together.
And so having that kind of symbolism, it would have been for so many people, just too much.
Narrator: The chains were still there, but placed nearly out of sight under Lady Liberty's feet.
Michele Mitchell: I think that removing or putting the chains in a different place, it's a compromise that some of us might have wished didn't occur.
But it's a compromise that perhaps needed to occur.
That sort of notion of racial difference is something I don't think we've dealt with very well in this country at all.