1886 – Statue of Liberty Unveiled; “The Huddled Masses Yearning To Be Free” Invited to Immigrate

“[I]n 1886, the Statue of Liberty, on Bedloe’s Island, was dedicated as a gift of the French nation to the American people and as a symbol of their eternal friendship. The statue was the work of Auguste Bartholdi… The funds needed to build a pedestal for the monument were raised by a campaign sponsored by the New York World, owned by Joseph Pulitzer, a Hungarian refugee, and it was Emma Lazarus who wrote the immortal lines for the tablet inside the pedestal, with their oft-quoted invitation to ‘the tired, the poor, the homeless and the tempest-tost,’ ‘the huddled masses yearning to breathe free.'”