Today’s word of the day, thanks to the Words Coach (https://www.wordscoach.com/dictionary), is propensity. Pronounced / prəˈpɛn sɪ ti /, this noun means “a natural inclination or tendency” or “Obsolete., favorable disposition or partiality” (https://www.dictionary.com/browse/propensity). Samuel Johnson, in his 1755 Dictionary, defines it as “Inclination; disposition to any thing good or bad” and includes an alternative form, propension, though that form is now truly obsolete. Dictionary.com does not have an entry for propension, and Merriam-Webster has an entry but calls it archaic (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/propension).

The word firs appears in English in the “1560s, ‘disposition to favor;’ 1610s, ‘a bent of mind, natural or acquired,’ with -ty + obsolete adjective propense ‘inclined, prone’ (1520s), from Latin propensus, past participle of propendere ‘incline to, hang forward, hang down, weigh over,’ from pro ‘forward’ (see pro-) + pendere ‘to hang, cause to hang; weigh’ (from PIE root *(s)pen- ‘to draw, stretch, spin’)” (https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=propensity).

The PIE root appears in a lot of English words. “It might form all or part of: append; appendix; avoirdupois; compendium; compensate; compensation; counterpoise; depend; dispense; equipoise; expend; expense; expensive; hydroponics; impend; painter (n.2) ‘rope or chain that holds an anchor to a ship’s side;’ pansy; penchant; pend; pendant; pendentive; pending; pendular; pendulous; pendulum; pension; pensive; penthouse; perpendicular; peso; poise; ponder; ponderous; pound (n.1) ‘measure of weight;’ prepend; prepense; preponderate; propensity; recompense; span (n.1) ‘distance between two objects;’ span (n.2) ‘two animals driven together;’ spangle; spanner; spend; spider; spin; spindle; spinner; spinster; stipend; suspend; suspension’” (ibid.).

According to On This Day, on this date in 1885 “$100,000 is raised in the US for the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty” (https://www.onthisday.com/events/august/11).

Okay, so I’m not a history major, and my literature studies were primarily British literature, especially literature well before 1885. Like most American kids, I suppose, I was told in school that the Statue of Liberty was a gift from France, that it was hauled across the Atlantic Ocean, and set up on an island in New York Harbor. That’s all. It wasn’t until I saw this item on the On This Day website that I ever even thought about what that meant. So here is what it meant, presented in the form of tidbits:

The architect who designed and oversaw the building of the Statue of Liberty was Frederic Auguste Bartholdi. He first got the idea about building very large sculptures when he took a trip to Egypt and Yemen in the 1850s (https://www.wonders-of-the-world.net/Statue-of-Liberty/Auguste-Bartholdi.php). “In 1869 he made a second trip to Egypt, this one specifically to propose the construction of a gigantic statue of woman holding a torch to put the Suez Canal input [sic] (a creation of French engineering), and would be called ‘the East enlightening the World.’ But this project was refused by the Khedive of Egypt, Ismail Pasha, by lack of funding for such work” (ibid.).

The idea of the statue representing liberty originated with Édouard René Lefèbvre de Laboulaye, a French politician and academic who was an admirer of the US Constitution, especially since the end of slavery. Part of his motivation in seeing the statue built and given to the USA as a gift from France was his opposition to Napoleon III, who opposed and suppressed many of the ideas supported by Laboulaye. In other words, the Statue of Liberty was, in part, an act of rebellion against Napoleon III.

The idea was hatched at a dinner party hosted by Laboulaye. “The group also thought that such a gift might inspire the American people to support the French in future struggles for freedom, similar to the way that the French had supported the Americans during the Revolution” (https://www.cityreliquary.org/dinner-at-laboulayes/). Part of the idea was that it would be a birthday present to celebrate the nation’s first hundred years.

In 1871, Bartholdi visited the USA in order to find an appropriate site for his gigantic lady, as well as to learn a bit more about the country he was preparing to honor (https://www.wonders-of-the-world.net/Statue-of-Liberty/Auguste-Bartholdi.php). During his visit, he was met with a less than enthusiastic attitude toward the building of the statue. Apparently the idea, from the start, was that the French would pay for the building of the statue and the Americans would pay for the building of the pedestal and site preparation. President Ulysses S. Grant did assure Bartholdi that the fort on Bedloe Island would be decommissioned and the island would be available for the placement of the statue.

Fund raising was difficult in both France and the USA. In fact, the installation of the project was delayed because of the lack of funds. But in 1885, the famous published Joseph Pulitzer led a fund-raising drive through his newspaper The New York World. He “attracted more than 120,000 contributors, most of whom gave less than a dollar (equivalent to $35 in 2024)” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_of_Liberty).

The famous sonnet by Emma Lazarus (1849-1887) was written “as a donation to an auction of art and literary work conducted by the ‘Art Loan Fund Exhibition in Aid of the Bartholdi Pedestal Fund for the Statue of Liberty’ to raise money for the pedestal’s construction” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Colossus).

Finally, “The statue’s completion was marked by New York’s first ticker-tape parade and a dedication ceremony presided over by President Grover Cleveland” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_of_Liberty).

So there was a lot of fund raising going on to create the Statue of Liberty and place it on an island in New York Harbor. It was generous of the US government to basically donate Bedloe Island, although in truth the plan was already to close the fort on the island and there was not much to be done with the island anyway (that island is called Liberty Island today). But I do commend the people involved in the project for using private money, even for raising money from average, every-day Americans, rather than relying on taxpayer funding to complete the project. Too often in today’s world people have a propensity for demanding the government do these kinds of projects as it is always easier to spend other people’s money.

Today’s image, of course, is of the Statue of Liberty (https://www.publicdomainpictures.net/en/view-image.php?image=170970&picture=statue-of-liberty), but you’ll have to click on the link because I was having trouble getting the website to upload it.