93,820 profiles ranked live

Emma Lazarus

✓ Source-basedstable

American poet (1849-1887)

United StatesWritersLived 1849 to 1887 · aged 38
Compare
Fame55.5
Momentum2.2
Languages29
Peak2000s
In century#1,144

Emma Lazarus was an American author of poetry, prose, and translations, as well as an activist for Jewish and Georgist causes. She is remembered for writing the sonnet "The New Colossus", which was inspired by the Statue of Liberty, in 1883.

Also inDeutsch

Photos 4

Awards 1

2009National Women's Hall of Fame

Writers from United States 6

About this person

Emma Lazarus was an American author of poetry, prose, and translations, as well as an activist for Jewish and Georgist causes. She is remembered for writing the sonnet "The New Colossus", which was inspired by the Statue of Liberty, in 1883. Its lines appear inscribed on a bronze plaque, installed in 1903, on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. Lazarus was involved in aiding refugees to New York who had fled antisemitic pogroms in eastern Europe, and she saw a way to express her empathy for these refugees in terms of the statue. The last lines of the sonnet were set to music by Irving Berlin as the song "Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor" for the 1949 musical Miss Liberty, which was based on the sculpting of the Statue of Liberty. The latter part of the sonnet was also set by Lee Hoiby in his song "The Lady of the Harbor" written in 1985 as part of his song cycle "Three Women".

Country
United States
Category
Writers
Type
Writer / Author
Status
deceased
Dates
Lived 1849 to 1887 · aged 38
Written about in
29 languages

Fame.am measures public visibility signals. It does not measure human value, talent, morality, or credibility.