Yale University - Banner / Pot Pourri Yearbook (New Haven, CT)

Page 17 text:

VOLUME ONE HUNDRED y enienarian oj a aJJale raaihon 1841-1941 Just one hundred years ago the first small four- page edition of the Yale Banner appeared as a protest against the barbarity of firemen and the injustice of New Haven petty court decisions. The protest stemmed from a fight which occurred between the firemen of New Haven and some Yale students on the New Haven Green. The Banner was introduced into an atmos- phere which might seem comfortable but somewhat primitive to the Yale student of the Twentieth Century. The Yalensian of 1841 had few con- veniences. When cold he stoked his coal or wood stove, when he read it was by the dim and flickering light of a whale oil, camphor oil, or kerosene lamp, and when thirsty he went to the college pump for water. The rooms of some of the buildings of the Old Brick Row were already old and musty, all of the streets of New Haven were but dirt roads, and the only transpor- tation existent within the town was by horse and buggy. For long distance travel there was the railroad, just recently built and inefficient. Also the THE FIRST EDITION XI