Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi 1871, not finishing the massive sandstone statue until 1880. In 1871, he made his first trip to the United States, where he pitched the idea of a massive statue gifted from the French to the Americans in honor of the centennial of American independence. The idea, which had first been broached to him in 1865 by his friend Édouard René de Laboulaye, resulted in the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor. After years of work and fundraising, the statue was inaugurated in 1886. During this period, Bartholdi also sculpted a number of monuments for American cities, such as a
The American Volunteer (statue) arguably the more famous statue, at least until Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi completed "Lady Liberty" in Paris in 1884, and it was shipped to the United States in 1885. Despite one major mishap – the upper half of the soldier fell into the Potomac River while being unloaded at Washington, D.C. – the statue was transported by canal barge to Sharpsburg, and carried on rollers to the National Cemetery. Installed on a new and taller pedestal (attributed to architect George Keller), the monument was dedicated on September 17, 1880 – the eighteenth anniversary of the battle. George Hess, the first superintendent