Initially focused on the elites, the Union was successful in raising funds from across French society. Schoolchildren and ordinary citizens gave, as did 181French municipalities. Laboulaye's political allies supported the call, as did descendants of the French contingent in the American Revolutionary War. Less idealistically, contributions came from those who hoped for American support in the French attempt to build the Panama Canal. The copper may have come from multiple sources and some of it is said to have come from a mine in Visnes, Norway,[39] though this has not been conclusively determined after testing samples.[40] According to Cara Sutherland in her book on the statue for the Museum of the City of New York, 200,000 pounds (91,000kg) was needed to build the statue, and the French copper industrialist Eugène Secrétan donated 128,000 pounds (58,000kg) of copper.[41]