I wish to thank the wonderful archivists and librarians at the Conservatoire national des arts et métiers in Paris. They were generous with their time and advice and helped me locate materials I would otherwise have missed. I’m grateful to Ruth Harris, who read and commented on the entire manuscript. I wouldn’t think of submitting a manuscript without having her read it first. I’m thankful as well for Gary Nash’s careful reading and astute advice about the text. (Any mistakes are, of course, my own.) Finally, I’d like to acknowledge John Palmer and Jeffrey Schier for their fine editorial work; John Rambow, proofreader extraordinaire; and Sandy Dijkstra for everything.
I found several existing works crucial as I prepared my own, and I’d like to acknowledge them here: Barry Moreno, The Statue of Liberty Encyclopedia (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000); Pierre Provoyeur and June Hargrove, Liberty: The French-American Statue in Art and History (New York: Harper & Row, 1986); Marvin Trachtenberg, The Statue of Liberty (New York: Penguin, 1976); Robert Belot and Daniel Bermond, Bartholdi (Paris: Perrin, 2004); and Albert Boime, Hollow Icons: The Politics of Sculpture in 19th-Century France (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1987).
As always, my greatest debt of gratitude is to my wife, Catherine Johnson, whose sharp intelligence and beautiful prose give me inspiration every day.
This book is dedicated to Catherine and to the memory of her parents, Robert Johnson (d. 2010) and Patricia Johnson (d. 2011), whose love, warmth, and generosity we will always miss.