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
Conservation-restoration of the Statue of Liberty completely assembled by April 27, 1984. The high scaffolding was designed specifically for the statue, and required ingenuity from its designers, as it could only be attached to the granite pedestal and not the statue and had to accommodate the intricate contours of the statue as well. Furthermore, the exterior scaffolding had to maintain a distance of at least 18 inches from any exposed section of the copper sheathing. The 6,000 or so separate components of the scaffold, made of a high load capacity aluminum (alloy 6061 T6), were unloaded onto Liberty Island on January 23, 1984. To prevent possible