Erasing History at Yale: Covers over Musket in Stone Carving of Puritan

[Fishrrman]

http://legalinsurrection.com/2017/08/erasing-history-at-yale-covers-over-musket-in-stone-carving-of-puritan/

Erasing History at Yale: Covers over Musket in Stone Carving of Puritan
by Mike LaChance
Saturday, August 12, 2017 at 9:30am

Just a little over a year ago, an employee at Yale smashed a stained glass window at the school because he was angry over the image of African Americans carrying cotton. We covered it in this post: Yale employee smashes allegedly racist stained-glass window, Yale won’t press charges

Not only did Yale not press charges, they rehired the employee with much fanfare. Now another piece of campus art has been altered for the sake of political correctness.

Here’s the explanation in the Yale alumni magazine:

Disarmament
"If you were especially observant during your years on campus, you may have noticed a stone carving by the York Street entrance to Sterling Memorial Library that depict a hostile encounter: a Puritan pointing a musket at a Native American (top). When the library decided to reopen the long-disused entrance as the front door of the new Center for Teaching and Learning, says head librarian Susan Gibbons, she and the university’s Committee on Art in Public Spaces decided the carving’s “presence at a major entrance to Sterling was not appropriate.”

So Yale placed stone over the musket in the carving. This image is from the Yale alumni magazine:



(more at URL above)

[Fishrrman]

We've seen this before:

Original:


"Corrected copy":

[dfwgator]

We've seen this before:

Original:


Corrected "copy":

[Jazzhead]

I remember that at least as far back as the late seventies the Calhoun College dining hall had a number of stained glass windows depicting the life of John C.  Calhoun.   One had an image of a slave crouching, hands upraised with his wrists in shackles.   Some years later  that particular image was exised and replaced with a plain pane of glass.   I recall seeing the censored pane a few years ago when I had lunch there with my daughter.  Now, of course, the College has been renamed Hopper College, and it wouldn't surprise me a bit if the whole series of panels are gone.

I remember the Indian and Puritan gargoyle well.  The library is festooned with dozens of them.  If I recall the stonemasons back the thirties - true artists imported from Italy,  I believe - were turned loose to vent their imaginations, and some of gargoyles are quite humorous.   Note that this sculpture presents a battle between Puritan and Indian - the Indian is armed with his bow, the Puritan his musket.  For the remainder of time, it won't be a fair fight -  the Puritan has been disarmed, and the Indian remains poised to vanquish his foe.