24 April 2013 Last updated at 19:39 ET

As the Statue of Liberty was shipped from France, efforts to raise funds for its pedestal stalled. But thanks to a newspaper campaign and the small donations of hundreds of residents, the base was eventually built. Rodrigo Davies, a researcher at the Center for Civic Media at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, explores America's first major crowdfunding project.

By the summer of 1885 the Statue of Liberty was in New York in pieces, awaiting assembly.

Designed by French sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi and paid for by the government of France, the statue was a diplomatic gift to the US. However, the US had been unable to raise $250,000 for a granite plinth for the statue - around $6.3m (4.1m) at today's prices.

A group called the American Committee of the Statue of Liberty was tasked with raising the money but fell short by more than a third.

New York Governor Grover Cleveland rejected the use of city funds to pay for it, and Congress could not agree on a funding package.

Amid the uncertainty, Baltimore, Boston, San Francisco and Philadelphia offered to pay for the pedestal in return for the statue's relocation.

It seemed as though New York had run out of options when renowned publisher Joseph Pulitzer decided to launch a fundraising campaign in his newspaper The New York World.

The campaign eventually raised money from more than 160,000 donors, including young children, businessmen, street cleaners and politicians, with more than three-quarters of the donations amounting to less than a dollar.

It was a triumphant rescue effort: in just five months The World raised $101,091 - enough to cover the last $100,000 to complete the pedestal and have money leftover for a gift for the sculptor.

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Statue of Liberty and early crowdfunding