In a ceremony held in Paris the completed Statue of Liberty
was formally presented to the United States ambassador as
a commemoration of the friendship between France and the
U.S.

The idea for the statue was born in 1865, when the French
historian and abolitionist Édouard de Laboulaye proposed
a monument to commemorate the upcoming centennial of
U.S. independence (1876), the perseverance of American
democracy and the liberation of the nation’s slaves.

Work on the statue, formally called “Liberty Enlightening
the World,” began in France in 1875.

Édouard René Lefèbvre de Laboulaye
(18 January 1811 – 25 May 1883)