US manufacturing activity expanded for a third consecutive month in March, with the Institute for Supply Management’s manufacturing PMI measuring 52.7, up slightly from 52.4 in February. New orders dropped from 55.8 to 53.5, while production rose 1.6 points to 55.1. Supplier deliveries increased 3.8 points to 58.9, and employment contracted 0.1 points to 48.7. Institute for Supply Management
The Statue of Liberty was made with copper but due to oxidation, it turned green.
When the “Lady in the Harbor” first arrived in New York in 1886, she didn’t look like the mint-green icon we know today. In fact, for the first twenty years of her life, she stood as a towering, metallic beacon of reddish-gold. Designed by French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi and engineered by Alexandre Gustave Eiffel, the statue was a gift from France to America. To build her, Bartholdi chose copper for three practical reasons:
When she was unveiled on October 28, 1886, her skin—made of 300 copper sheets roughly the thickness of two pennies—shone with a bright, metallic brown luster. The transformation from “penny-colored” to “patina-green” wasn’t planned. Bartholdi actually expected the statue to age into a deeper, darker red. However, the unique environment of New York Harbor—a mix of salt air, moisture, and industrial pollution—triggered a process called oxidation.
The Timeline of Change:
While we now view the green color as iconic, it actually serves a vital structural purpose. The layer of verdigris (the green patina) acts as a protective shield. It seals the copper underneath, preventing the metal from further corrosion and weathering. By the time the color fully changed, a new generation of immigrants had arrived in America seeing a green statue.
