The Statue of Liberty is a clear symbol for immigrants and the American spirit but a little known fact is that the statue was originally intended to represent a female Egyptian peasant as a Colossus of Rhodes for the Industrial Age. According to journalist Michael Daly of the Daily Beast, the statue “was originally conceived as a Muslim peasant woman and was to have stood at the approach to the Suez Canal, a lantern in her upraised hand serving as both lighthouse and a symbol of progress.”
Daly continues, “the sculptor, Frederic Auguste Bartholdi of France, proved unable to sell the idea to the khedive of Egypt, Ishma’il Pasha. Bartholdi remained determined to erect a colossus on the scale of the one in ancient Rhodes. He sailed to America with drawings of the Muslim woman transformed to the personification of Liberty… He was on a ferry to Staten Island when he decided that Bedloe’s Island would be just the spot.”
