Emma Lazarus

Emma Lazarus
Emma Lazarus, c. 1872
Born	(1849-07-22)July 22, 1849 New York City, New York
Died	November 19, 1887(1887-11-19) (aged 38) New York City, New York
Genre	Poetry
Notable works	The New Colossus

Emma Lazarus (July 22, 1849 – November 19, 1887) was an American poet and Georgist from New York City.

She is best known for "The New Colossus", a sonnet written in 1883; its lines appear inscribed on a bronze plaque in the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty installed in 1903, a decade and a half after Lazarus's death.

Lazarus was born into a large Sephardic-Ashkenazi Jewish family, the fourth of seven children of Moses Lazarus and Esther Nathan. The Lazarus family was from Germany, and the Nathan family was originally from Portugal and resident in New York long before the American Revolution. Lazarus's great-great grandmother on her mother's side, Grace Seixas Nathan (born in New York in 1752) was also a poet. Lazarus was also related through her mother to Benjamin N. Cardozo, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

From an early age, she studied American and British literature, as well as several languages, including German, French, and Italian. Her writings attracted the attention of Ralph Waldo Emerson.

She was a friend and admirer of the american political economist Henry George. She believed deeply in Georgist economic reforms and became active in the 'single tax' movement for land value tax. She published a poem in the New York Times named after George's most famous book, Progress and Poverty.