Who Was Emma Lazarus?

Emma Lazarus was a New York City poet from the Lower East Side of Manhattan. She is best known for "The New Colossus", written in 1883; its lines appear on a plaque in the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty.

"Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"