Statue of Liberty the decade. The Liberty statue project was not the only such undertaking that had difficulty raising money: construction of the obelisk later known as the Washington Monument sometimes stalled for years; it would ultimately take over three-and-a-half decades to complete. There was criticism both of Bartholdi's statue and of the fact that the gift required Americans to foot the bill for the pedestal. In the years following the Civil War, most Americans preferred realistic artworks depicting heroes and events from the nation's history, rather than allegorical works like the Liberty statue. There was also a feeling that Americans should design
Replicas of the Statue of Liberty This statue was given in 1889 to France by U.S. citizens living in Paris to celebrate the French Revolution three years after the main statue in New York was inaugurated. In 1937, the statue was turned from looking east to looking west straight to the direction of the New York's statue. The statue is near the Grenelle Bridge on the Île aux Cygnes, a man-made island in the Seine (). It is high and weighs 14 tons. Inaugurated on July 4, 1889, it looks southwest, downriver along the Seine. Its tablet bears two dates: "IV JUILLET 1776" (July 4, 1776: