New York

Knowing what this statue would entail for its construction, the French elite in the likes of Bartholdi and Labouye decided to come up with mechanisms to pay for the statue. A member of the Franco-American Union in which these men were a part of decided to use lottery as a means of raising funds with the prizes works of Bartholdi (Oh Ranger). Models of the statue were sold in both the United States and France with almost a million dollars raised by 1879. While efforts were underway in France, across the Atlantic there were several deliberations going on to assist in raising the funds for the statue in New York; however, with failed attempts. Even the congress rejected a bill for assistance to the project. So with faith waning and skepticism about who should take control of the monetary aspects of this huge project, there had to be a way to regenerate public enthusiasm.

A simple effort came from a Hungarian named Pulitzer, an immigrant owner of several newspaper franchises. His helping hand knowing that the project was on the brinks gave it renewed life. Oh ranger indicates that Pulitzer used this effort to “raise funds for the statue, to increase his newspaper’s circulation and to blast the rich for their selfishness”. To increase circulation and contributions, he promised to publish the names of every single contributor in the pages of the “World” no matter the size of the contributions. This spurred interest and contributions into the efforts to construct the statue. The effort was achieved on August 11, 1885 as over a hundred thousand dollars was raised by various contributions (Oh Ranger).

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