Out on Alki Beach in West Seattle is a statue. It’s called the Statue Of Liberty. It's a replica of the one in New York Harbor. Only this one is tiny, about six feet tall. It was part of a national Boy Scout campaign to erect statues like this across the country: a campaign called "Strengthening The Arm Of Liberty."
The original Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor symbolized America's freedom from colonial powers and its friendship with France. Over the years immigrants passing the statue on the way to Ellis Island adopted the statue as a sort of patron saint, and the famous quote "give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free" was eventually added to the statue's base.
By the time Seattle's Statue of Liberty was dedicated in 1952, its meaning had changed yet again. Liberty was no longer a revolutionary idea. It was something old and familiar, a sign of stability in a time of great social and political instability.
You can get a sense of that instability from this 1951 newsreel. We sampled it in today's story:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKqXu-5jw60
Full list of stories from KUOW Presents, June 17:
- Seattle's Dirty River Offers Gift Of Green Jobs
- BBC- Comfort Women in South Korea
- Turkish Protestors Make Humorous Songs From Prime Minister's Insults
- Former CIA Operative Robert Bear Says Corner-Cutting Intelligence Contractors Led To Snowden Leak
- Tales From The Cold War: How One Russian Messed Up And Saved America From Nuclear Disaster
- BBC- How Chinese Employers Keep Employees
- Syria's Mom and Pop Oil Refineries
- 99% Invisible: Forgotten (A Statue Long Ago Removed)
- Seattle's Tiny Statue Of Liberty (audio located in post above)
- Writer's Almanac
- Colum McCann
- Seattle Workers, What Are Your Rights?