Former Residence of Emma Lazarus

Introduction

Text-to-speech Audio

The poem for which most Americans would remember her would be forgotten until fourteen years after her death. It was only in 1903--years after her death--that Emma Lazarus's poem, "The New Colossus"--was inscribed on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. It was in 1883, the year that the Lazarus family moved into the home on West 10th Street, that Lazarus was asked to write a poem about the statue. But by that time, Lazarus was already an accomplished poet and experienced activist.

Images

Emma Lazarus

The former Lazarus residence

Window, Land vehicle, Neighbourhood, Car

"The New Colossus" on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty

Text, Font, Commemorative plaque, Interior design

Backstory and Context

Text-to-speech Audio

Emma Lazarus was born into a wealthy Jewish family and demonstrated a talent for writing as a teenager. Though her early life is not well-remembered, Lazarus was actually a successful writer well before she wrote her most well-known poem. Her father privately printed her first collection of poems when she was a teenager and her first commercially-published collection appeared the next year. That collection drew the attention of Ralph Waldo Emerson, who would become both a friend and mentor to Lazarus.

The late 1800s were a time of widespread persecution of Russian Jews, and as an educated, socially aware Jew, Lazarus was keenly interested in their cause. In both poetry and prose, she wrote about the plight of Russian Jews, becoming one of the first American Jews to do so.

Lazarus began working with immigrants, particularly Russian Jews, and her commitment to the creation of a Jewish homeland grew, before Zionism was a widely-known concept. Much of her life was spent helping recently arrived immigrants into the city and it was through that work that she began advocating for immigrants, particularly Jews who had fled persecution in Europe.

In 1883, a friend approached Lazarus about writing a poem for an auction to raise money for the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. She rejected the idea at first, but reconsidered and within two days had written "The New Colossus." The poem initially attracted little attention and it was not unitl 1903 that lines from the poem were inscribed on the statue's pedestal.

It was also in 1883 that the Lazarus family moved into the home on West 10th Street. Lazarus lived in the home until her death in 1887.

Sources

Coopersmith, Deborah . Emma Lazarus's Apartment , Literary Manhattan. Accessed December 26th 2020. https://www.literarymanhattan.org/place/emma-lazarus/.

Emma Lazarus , Poetry Foundation . Accessed December 26th 2020. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/emma-lazarus.

Emma Lazarus and the History Behind her Poem 'The New Colossus', NPR. August 14th 2019. Accessed December 26th 2020. https://www.npr.org/2019/08/14/751235950/emma-lazarus-and-the-history-behind-her-poem-the-new-colossus.