Emma Lazarus was born in 1849 in the city of New York. She began writing and translating poetry as a teenager. In 1866, her father privately printed her first work in and the next year saw her first collection, Poems and Translations published by a commercial press. Lazarus was one of the first successful and highly visible Jewish American authors. She wrote the sonnet "The New Colossus" in 1883. It's lines were engraved on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty in 1903.