#474 Made in France: The Statue of Liberty’s Forgotten Origin Story

She stands in New York Harbor as America’s most recognizable symbol—but the story of the Statue of Liberty begins thousands of miles away, in the charming Alsatian city of Colmar, France. In this special on-location episode, Tom ventures to the picturesque town where sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi was born in 1834. Walking through Colmar’s cobblestone streets and half-timbered facades, Tom sits down with Juliette Chevée, curator of the Musée Bartholdi , to uncover the French side of this iconic American monument. Who was Bartholdi? What did the statue originally mean to the French republicans who conceived it at an 1865 dinner party? How did a rejected Egyptian lighthouse design become the template for Liberty’s form? And how did two Frenchmen—Bartholdi and the historian Édouard de Laboulaye—manage to convince a foreign country to accept a colossal structure without any government assistance from either France or the United States? This episode was produced and edited by Kieran Gannon Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You can listen to #474 Made in France: The Statue of Liberty’s Forgotten Origin Story online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

#474 Made in France: The Statue of Liberty’s Forgotten Origin Story is an episode from The Bowery Boys: New York City History by Tom Meyers.

This episode is 01:21:33 long.

This episode was published on Dec 5, 2025.

Yes. Use the heart button on the episode page to add it to your favorite episodes list.

Yes. This page shows related episodes from The Bowery Boys: New York City History when more episodes are available from the podcast feed.