Happy 126th birthday to the Statue of Liberty! Today also marks the end of a year worth of renovations to the Statue.

The American Jewish Historical Society here at the Center holds the handwritten original of Emma Lazarus’s “The New Colossus” (1883), which is the poem that graces the Statue of Liberty (installed on bronze plaque in 1903). The above image is of the poem in  Lazarus’s draft form; you can read the text below.

The New Collosus
by Emma Lazarus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

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To learn more about the poem and its history, read the New York Times blog entry: “How a Sonnet Made a Statue the ‘Mother of Exiles.’”