'Neath The Elms - The Yale Fence - 1870s Pach Bros Cabinet Photo

Outstanding 1870s Pach Bros cabinet photo. This photo was used for the frontispiece of the publication "The History of the Class of '82: Yale College 1879 - 1910", and was titled " 'Neath The Elms". The Yale Fence, in front of Old Brick Row, was so much more than just the prop against which Yale team captains in particular would lean or sit in photographs taken from the 1870s until present day. Collectors and researchers can all probably recall dozens of such photographs they have viewed.

The history of the fence itself has any number of interesting stories associated with it. What is most well documented was the failed fight to save the fence, and that it was gone in its entirety by mid 1888. The book “Yale, Her Campus, Classrooms, and Athletics (1899), has a chapter “The Fight to Save the Fence” specifically addressing the attempt to save the fence from being removed, by protests and petition (signed by students an twenty-one-hundred alumni).   Previous to 1888 there is also reason to believe that sections of the fence were removed or destroyed and that much of the fence may have been destroyed in 1879.

In 1879, after a particularly damaging (to the fence) class rush, Pach Bros. obtained a section of the original fence and began using this at their New Haven studio, acknowledging and further cementing it’s  significance. Early cabinet photos show the identifiable fence section with its split middle rail, which was used in their photos up until 1952. Painted backdrops are evident in these early cabinet photos and are painted to represent the fence’s original location at the college. For a good example of this see our July 4, 2014 blog posting.

All classes had specific areas on the fence on which they could sit, and at any given time there would commonly be two to three hundred people on/at the fence. Numbers of Yale traditions involved the fence and it was held 'sacred' in many respects.  William Phelps Eno, class of '82 constructed an exact replica of the old fence at Yale around 1900, "to make up, as far as possible, for the irreparable loss of the original fence which had been removed to permit the erection of Osborn Hall". There is an abundance of what turns out to be fascinating reading on this subject. Besides the above listed reference, two other good sources for information on the fence are “Yale, A History” (1999), by Kelley, and, “A Bowl Full of Memories, 100 Years of Football at the Yale Bowl,(2014) by Rich Marazzi. 

                                                          Large Albumin of "The Fence"

 

 

Jacob at the Yale Club in Manhattan, attending the Japanese Medical Society of America scholarship presentation ceremony, May 10, 2016. He happened upon this section of 'The Fence' they proudly have on display.