<P> The statue was administered by the United States Lighthouse Board until 1901 and then by the Department of War; since 1933 it has been maintained by the National Park Service . Public access to the balcony around the torch has been barred for safety since 1916 . </P> <P> According to the National Park Service, the idea for the Statue of Liberty was first proposed by Édouard René de Laboulaye the president of the French Anti-Slavery Society and a prominent and important political thinker of his time . The project is traced to a mid-1865 conversation between de Laboulaye, a staunch abolitionist and Frédéric Bartholdi, a sculptor . In after - dinner conversation at his home near Versailles, Laboulaye, an ardent supporter of the Union in the American Civil War, is supposed to have said: "If a monument should rise in the United States, as a memorial to their independence, I should think it only natural if it were built by united effort--a common work of both our nations ." The National Park Service, in a 2000 report, however, deemed this a legend traced to an 1885 fundraising pamphlet, and that the statue was most likely conceived in 1870 . In another essay on their website, the Park Service suggested that Laboulaye was minded to honor the Union victory and its consequences, "With the abolition of slavery and the Union's victory in the Civil War in 1865, Laboulaye's wishes of freedom and democracy were turning into a reality in the United States . In order to honor these achievements, Laboulaye proposed that a gift be built for the United States on behalf of France . Laboulaye hoped that by calling attention to the recent achievements of the United States, the French people would be inspired to call for their own democracy in the face of a repressive monarchy ." </P> <P> According to sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, who later recounted the story, Laboulaye's comment was not intended as a proposal, but it inspired Bartholdi . Given the repressive nature of the regime of Napoleon III, Bartholdi took no immediate action on the idea except to discuss it with Laboulaye . Bartholdi was in any event busy with other possible projects; in the late 1860s, he approached Isma'il Pasha, Khedive of Egypt, with a plan to build Progress or Egypt Carrying the Light to Asia, a huge lighthouse in the form of an ancient Egyptian female fellah or peasant, robed and holding a torch aloft, at the northern entrance to the Suez Canal in Port Said . Sketches and models were made of the proposed work, though it was never erected . There was a classical precedent for the Suez proposal, the Colossus of Rhodes: an ancient bronze statue of the Greek god of the sun, Helios . This statue is believed to have been over 100 feet (30 m) high, and it similarly stood at a harbor entrance and carried a light to guide ships . </P> <P> Any large project was further delayed by the Franco - Prussian War, in which Bartholdi served as a major of militia . In the war, Napoleon III was captured and deposed . Bartholdi's home province of Alsace was lost to the Prussians, and a more liberal republic was installed in France . As Bartholdi had been planning a trip to the United States, he and Laboulaye decided the time was right to discuss the idea with influential Americans . In June 1871, Bartholdi crossed the Atlantic, with letters of introduction signed by Laboulaye . </P>

Who did france give the statue of liberty to first