Jefferson Stands Tall

For as long as students have entered and left the building of the School of Journalism, they have walked beneath the gaze of the august and dignified statue of Thomas Jefferson that guards its steps.

The eight-and-a-half-foot bronze statue, designed by William Ordway Partridge, has stood in its place since 1914. The statue sprang from a $25,000 gift by Joseph Pulitzer, renowned newspaper publisher and journalist, supplemented by $3,000 in additional donations.

In his will, Pulitzer set aside $25,000 for a statue of a great statesman to "at last adorn some public place in New York, the foremost Democratic city of this new republic." Two representatives of Pulitzer's estate, his son Ralph and former Assistant Secretary of State George L. Rives, selected a model of the proposed statue presented by Partridge.

Beginning in 1912, Partridge, CC 1885 and a sculptor, worked on the statue for two years in his studio located at 15 W. 38th St. Partridge also designed the metal inserts on the base of the sundial on Columbia's campus.

The statue was cast using the cire perdu, or "lost wax," method. Molten bronze was poured into a plaster cast and allowed to cool, after which the outside shell was chipped away, resulting in a solid bronze statue. Jefferson's statue stands on a six-inch-tall base that rests on a pedestal of five feet made of Indiana limestone and designed by the architectural company McKim, Mead, and White.

The statue was at first planned to be placed in City Hall Park, but after Columbia trustees showed an interest in having the likeness of Jefferson, the trustees of Pulitzer's assets agreed to relocate it to Columbia's campus.

On May 20, 1914, Partridge showed the finished plaster cast to the public, and the bronze statue was officially unveiled by Columbia University's former-President Nicholas Murray Butler at five o'clock on Commencement Day, June 2, 1914.

Columbia's historical archives, Columbiana, hold a delicate and dusty account by an Associated Press reporter who was present at the unveiling. After Ralph Pulitzer spoke, George McAneny, president of the Board of Aldermen, gratefully accepted Jefferson's statue on behalf of the city.

"The gift of this School of Journalism, passing down to the younger men of the craft an opportunity for success and raising of this statue, are both a part of the reflection of a noble nature," McAneny said of the elder Pulitzer.

On the steps leading up to Hamilton Hall, mirroring the Jefferson statue, is one of Alexander Hamilton. Robert McCaughey, Barnard professor of history and author of Stand, Columbia, said that the Hamilton statue serves as an "ideological counter" to Jefferson's.

To this very day, these two statues stand. Jefferson, exuding an aura of studiousness, holds his coat and hat in his arms with dignity, out of respect to an imaginary audience. His counterpart, Hamilton, puffs out his chest and seems to speak with vitality and thundering conviction.

Despite the differences, both statues are vestiges of the past connecting today's campus to its roots.