How the Men Who Built the Statue of Liberty's Pedestal Were Almost Never Paid

In 1883, construction began on the pedestal that would hold the Statue of Liberty — and the men who built it nearly went unpaid, abandoned three times when the American Committee ran out of money. This is not the story of the statue. It's the story of the base. I've been through the construction ledgers, the contractor payroll books, and the correspondence in the New York Public Library's archival collection. What I found is a record of 24,000 tons of concrete poured by hand, 6,000 tons of granite cut to specification, and men like Tomasso Ferretti and James Connolly who gave three years to a project that came within weeks of collapse — not because of engineering, but because the richest country in the world couldn't raise $270,000. Joseph Pulitzer raised it instead, from 120,000 ordinary people who gave less than a dollar each. The workers got paid. The pedestal got finished. Nobody put their names on a plaque. If this kind of history matters to you — the men whose names are falling off the stones — subscribe. This channel finds them. 👇 Tell me in the comments if any of your people came through New York Harbor. #StatueOfLiberty #AmericanHistory #LaborHistory #ForgottenHistory #GlobalOldHistory #HistoryDocumentary #WorkingClassHistory #NewYorkHistory #ImmigrantHistory #BuildingAmerica