Adapted from
Why Is the Statue Of Liberty Green?
Have You Ever Wondered...
Why is the Statue of Liberty green?
During the Revolutionary War, France became a close friend of Americans seeking
freedom from Great Britain. To honor its friendship with America, France gave the
U.S. a special gift: sculptor Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi's beautiful statue called
Liberty Enlightening the World. We call her The Statue of Liberty.
The Statue of Liberty traveled from France on ships. It arrived in New York Harbor
on June 19, 1885. It came in 350 pieces packed into 214 crates. The statue was
assembled on a concrete pedestal base weighing 54 million pounds and built by the
United States. The 151-foot tall statue has become a worldwide symbol of freedom
and democracy.
The Statue of Liberty's home is Liberty Island. From 1892 to 1943, “Lady Liberty"
greeted over 12 million immigrants as they arrived on boats at the nearby Ellis Island
Immigration Station.
Poet Emma Lazarus’ words on the pedestal of the statue reflect immigrants' hopes
and dreams for freedom in America:
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-tost to me.
The statue represents Libertas, the Roman goddess of freedom. She holds a torch in
one hand and a tablet inscribed with the date of the Declaration of Independence in
the other---July 4, 1776.
The statue is made of hundreds of thin copper sheets assembled on a frame of steel
supports. The outer copper layer of the statue is the thickness of two pennies put
together. Despite how thin it is, the copper is strong. The statue contains 62,000
pounds of copper---the weight is equal to 31,000 large pickup trucks! The amount of
copper in the Statue of Liberty could make 30 million pennies!
The inner framework contains 250,000 pounds of steel. It was engineered and
designed by Gustave Eiffel. (He later used the same design on the Eiffel Tower in
Paris.)
When the statue was originally assembled, it was a dull brown color, reflecting the
natural color of its copper plates. Over the next 30 years though, it slowly turned to
the green color you see today.
What happened? Was it magic? Nope! It was science. A natural weathering process
— called oxidation — took place when air and water reacted with the copper
plates.
Over time, the weathering of the copper created a thin layer of copper carbonate
called a patina. Although some people were worried that the changing color of the
statue meant it was decaying, the patina actually protects the copper underneath from
further corrosion.
Now you know why the Statue of Liberty is green. Chemistry is all around you!