Liberty: The Statue and the American Dream

by Leslie Allen

The Official book for the Centennial of the Statue of Liberty published by The Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation, Inc. 1985 cover photo by Peter B. Kaplan

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Reference

304 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1985

Reviews

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tremendous account of the history of immigration in the United States. Beautiful book complete with pictures, illustrations, and transcripts from Ellis Island. (The title is a bit of a misnomer. Focus of the book is immigration not the statue.)

[Sam Richins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Liberty by Louise Allen is a book all about immigrants, how they got into America, and what they do once they come into the country and after they become a citizen. This book does this telling of by showing immigration request forms and numbers of immigrants entering in. It tells also of their lives before, showing why they are taking refuge, and how they are finding, refuge, liberty, and opportunity, which can be interpreted as the American Dream. The book is a compilation of documents, pictures, and graphs with the author captioning each one, giving more explanation. The book also talks about the reasons people didn’t want to come here, which there were a few, but less of those than of reasons to come here. With my knowledge of history, I would think that this is a very accurate book, as it is funded by a museum that regulated immigrants back in the 1900s to the time it closed. The Author respects and shows all viewpoints of all parallel cultures of the 1880s through now. She is definitely not a cultural insider, but the way she writes, it seems like she is a little bit every part of those. It is written appropriately, compiled nicely, and shown cleanly to the reader. I would definitely recommend this, but not to someone that does not like reading long pages, as this has many of them. It is still a very good book.

[Kimberly · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is an inspirational book. I have owned it for quite sometime and guests in my home are always intrigued by this book. When I read it I learned several things I did not know. The photos continue to fascinate me.