The Statue of Liberty and America's crowdfunding pioneer - BBC News
By the summer of 1885 the Statue of Liberty was in New York in pieces, awaiting assembly.
Designed
by French sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi and paid for by the
government of France, the statue was a diplomatic gift to the US.
However, the US had been unable to raise $250,000 for a granite plinth
for the statue - around $6.3m (£4.1m) at today's prices.
A group
called the American Committee of the Statue of Liberty was tasked with
raising the money but fell short by more than a third.
New York
Governor Grover Cleveland rejected the use of city funds to pay for it,
and Congress could not agree on a funding package.
Amid the
uncertainty, Baltimore, Boston, San Francisco and Philadelphia offered
to pay for the pedestal in return for the statue's relocation.
It
seemed as though New York had run out of options when renowned publisher
Joseph Pulitzer decided to launch a fundraising campaign in his
newspaper The New York World.
As the Statue of Liberty was shipped
from France, efforts to raise funds for its pedestal stalled. But
thanks to a newspaper campaign and the small donations of hundreds of
residents, the base was eventually built. Rodrigo Davies, a researcher
at the Center for Civic Media at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, explores America's first major crowdfunding project.
from France, efforts to raise funds for its pedestal stalled. But
thanks to a newspaper campaign and the small donations of hundreds of
residents, the base was eventually built. Rodrigo Davies, a researcher
at the Center for Civic Media at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, explores America's first major crowdfunding project.
Designed
by French sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi and paid for by the
government of France, the statue was a diplomatic gift to the US.
However, the US had been unable to raise $250,000 for a granite plinth
for the statue - around $6.3m (£4.1m) at today's prices.
A group
called the American Committee of the Statue of Liberty was tasked with
raising the money but fell short by more than a third.
New York
Governor Grover Cleveland rejected the use of city funds to pay for it,
and Congress could not agree on a funding package.
Amid the
uncertainty, Baltimore, Boston, San Francisco and Philadelphia offered
to pay for the pedestal in return for the statue's relocation.
It
seemed as though New York had run out of options when renowned publisher
Joseph Pulitzer decided to launch a fundraising campaign in his
newspaper The New York World.
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