Created by Eliza Gauger, a 17-year-old student from Bellingham, Washington, the skillful drawing of "Mommy Liberty" has been reprinted in newspapers across the country and has been turned into posters, coffee mugs, T-shirts and baseball caps.
The pencil sketch portrays Liberty brandishing a revolver and cradling a baby wrapped in the U.S. flag. "The most dangerous place in the world is between a mother and her children," the caption reads.
"I was illustrating my own mother's willingness to do anything, even something she hated -- my mother is terribly afraid of guns -- to protect her children," said Gauger in an e-mail. "I think America feels the same way about its citizens."
Gauger created Mommy Liberty the day after the 9/11 attacks and posted it to her online diary at LiveJournal. The response was immediate and overwhelming. The image was quickly sent around the world by e-mail.
"People have been passing it around on forums, with e-mail, at schools, at truck stops, posting it on their cars, wearing the T-shirts," said Gauger. "It's phenomenal."
Mommy Liberty has also been reproduced by about a dozen U.S. newspapers as an editorial cartoon.
Gauger has received hundreds of e-mails about the image, including messages from U.S. servicemen overseas. She has heard from people who passed around the image at home or school, she said. She was even told about one employee of a Florida 7-11 who handed color copies to customers.
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