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Old
Yale: Tales of the True Fence
In
1888, the Corporation decided to remove the venerable Yale Fence.
But souvenir-seeking students and alumni took the demolition upon
themselves.
Summer
1998
by Judith Ann Schiff
Judith
Ann Schiff is Chief Research Archivist at the Yale University Library.
Across
Yale and around the world, people still cling to aged scraps of
wood that they claim are pieces of the Yale Fence:
the true Yale Fence,
the campus social center that once stood at College and Chapel.
Like religious relics, their worth bears little relation to their
intrinsic value: Pieces of the fence conjure the spirit of what
is by now a very old Yale.
The tradition of the
Fence began in 1833, when the picket fence fronting the Old Brick
Row was replaced by a rail fence on which one could comfortably
lean or perch.
It soon attracted students in great numbers for the sharing of news
and idle chatter.
Traditions grew up around
the Fence, beginning with the pecking order of preferred seating.
Only upperclassmen were permitted to sit at the corner; sophomores
were obliged to sit farther back on College Street. Freshmen were
not allowed to sit on any part of the Fence until after the Fence
Oration ceremony was held in late spring.
Alumni looking back
considered the Fence the most unifying influence of their college
years. As Walter
Camp described it: "Men of all tastes and modes of life
were there together. They sat on the common rail, and the only mark
of division was the mark of the arbitrary line of time which divided
classes."
When
the enclosure of the Old Campus began with the construction of Farnam
Hall in 1869, the Fence's days were clearly numbered;
it was gradually removed as buildings went up. By 1885, the Fence
extended from South College -- now the site of Vanderbilt Hall --
on Chapel Street to Lawrance Hall on College Street. Still, Yale
men were shocked three years later to hear President Dwight pronounce
that the Fence would have to make way for a grand classroom building,
Osborn Hall (later to be replaced by Bingham Hall). Students and
alumni united in a valiant "Fight to Save the Fence,"
beginning with mass meetings and culminating in the submission of
a petition to the Yale Corporation signed by 2,000 students and
alumni.
But it was to no avail:
On May 19, the Corporation voted to remove the Fence. Two days later,
three whole sections vanished without explanation, leaving nothing
but the postholes. At Commencement time, more pieces disappeared
as students, especially the Class of 1888, pinched pieces to keep
as souvenirs. On June 29, amid the "grand jubilation"
of Yale's crew victory over Harvard, every remaining rail was torn
out.
Over the years some
of the pieces have returned to Yale as gifts to the memorabilia
collection -- some as simple relics, some mounted and framed, and
others transformed into picture frames, artwork, and a gavel. The
most celebrated image of the Fence is the monumental oil painting
by the noted American artist Alfred Cornelius Howland. Widely reproduced
as a print,
the original is on permanent display in the Memorabilia Room in
Sterling Memorial Library. The Fence also lives on at Yale through
the later reproduction that borders the interior of the Old Campus
and in the University's long collective memory.  |
