Lady Liberty

From Wipedia – Strengthening the Arm of Liberty- Hundreds of smaller replicas of the Statue of Liberty have been created worldwide. Between 1949 and 1952, approximately two hundred 100-inch (2.5 m) replicas of the statue, made of stamped copper, were purchased by Boy Scout troops and donated in 39 states in the U.S. and several of its possessions and territories. The project was the brainchild of Kansas City businessman, J.P. Whitaker, who was then Scout Commissioner of the Kansas City Area Council.

The copper statues were manufactured by Friedley-Voshardt Co. (Chicago, Illinois) and purchased through the Kansas City Boy Scout office by those wanting one. The statues are approximately 81?2 feet tall without the base, constructed of sheet copper, weigh 290 pounds, and originally cost $350 plus freight. The mass-produced statues are not meticulously accurate: a conservator notes that “her face isn’t as mature as the real Liberty. It’s rounder and more like a little girl’s.”

Many of these statues have been lost or destroyed, but preservationists have been able to account for about a hundred of them, and BSA Troop 101 of Cheyenne, Wyoming has collected photographs of over 100 of them.

Examples of the statues can be found at Birmingham, Alabama, Fayetteville, Arkansas, Pine Bluff, Arkansas, Greeley, Colorado, at the Mississippi riverfront in Burlington, Iowa, at Overland Park, Kansas and at Chimborazo Park in Richmond, Virginia.