Lifting the Lamp: Emma Lazarus and the Spirit of Liberty

Intro

On a crisp autumn afternoon in 1883, New York’s cultural elite gathered at the Academy of Design to raise funds for the pedestal of a statue destined to stand in New York Harbor. This monument, a gift to the U.S. from France, had been given to commemorate the country’s centennial and the end of slavery. It would become known to the world as the Statue of Liberty.

For the event, organizers turned to Emma Lazarus, an accomplished young poet and writer, asking her to contribute a sonnet. Emma responded with “The New Colossus,” a poem that captured a broader vision:

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-tost to me,  

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

At the time, Emma’s 14-line sonnet was but a small contribution to an event that raised $15,000 (about $467k today). Few people realized the lasting impact it would have, and the sonnet was largely forgotten about. Yet, it would become one of the most enduring contributions from that day, when in 1903, the poem was engraved onto the Statue of Liberty pedestal, embodying the monument’s new spirit next to Ellis Island, which had become the entry point for millions of immigrants into the U.S.

Emma, however, never got to see her sonnet displayed. She passed away at just 38 years old in 1887.

—

Emma was born on July 22, 1849, into a family whose American roots stretched deep into the nation’s history. Her ancestors, Sephardic Jews fleeing persecution, had arrived in the colonies in 1654, among the first Jewish families to settle in what would become the United States. Over the generations, the Lazarus family prospered, becoming part of New York’s elite. Emma and her siblings would grow up in comfort as a result, surrounded by the privileges that came with wealth.

Yet Emma’s early years were not without difficulty. She was so frail that doctors advised her parents not to send the young girl to school. The worried parents also decided to keep her mostly confined to home. But while she missed out on some of the adventures that come with youth, at home, Emma’s mind flourished. She studied many subjects, learned languages, including French, German and Italian, and fell in love with fantasy and literature. Her sister would later recall about Emma that “books were her world from her earliest years. In them she literally lost and found herself.”

Become a paid subscriber to continue reading about Emma.

—

Note: Click here to read another snapshot biography for paid subscribers, Lucille Ball: The Woman Who Changed Television.

Sources:

• “Emma Lazarus.” National Park Service, https://www.nps.gov/stli/learn/historyculture/emma-lazarus.htm
• “How the Statue of Liberty became a symbol for a national myth.” University of Hawaii, https://www.hawaii.edu/news/2021/10/29/statue-of-liberty-symbol-for-a-national-myth/
• Jewish Women’s Archive. “Emma Lazarus.” (Viewed on September 12, 2024) <https://jwa.org/womenofvalor/lazarus>.
• Kurtz, William, photographer. Emma Lazarus / engraved by T. Johnson ; photographed by W. Kurtz. Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/99402695/>.
• Lazarus, Emma. “The New Colossus.” Wikisource, Wikimedia Foundation, https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_New_Colossus
• Lefer, Diane. “Emma Lazarus.” New York : Chelsea House, 1988. (Internet Archive)
• Lichtenstein, Diane. “Words and Worlds: Emma Lazarus’s Conflicting Citizenships.” Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature, vol. 6, no. 2, 1987, pp. 247–63. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/464271. Accessed 12 Sept. 2024.
• Wikimedia Commons, Wikimedia Foundation, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Emmalazarusengraving.jpg