On this day in 1884 the cornerstone was laid for the pedestal of New York City's Statue of Liberty. Much of the rest of the money needed would be raised by Joseph Pulitzer through his campaign in The New York World for the penny-donations of the poor, but one of the most historic fund-raisers was an upper crust affair with a more literary slant. This was the Pedestal Art Loan Exhibition, to which Walt Whitman, Mark Twain and others had donated manuscripts for auction, and for which poet Emma Lazarus wrote "The New Colossus ... FULL STORY »
