Right Side of Littlefield Fountain

The Littlefield Fountain is one the most photographed sites on campus as well as a window into the commemorative history of the University. This segment explores the symbolism and vision behind the Fountain statuary. A discussion about the fountain’s patron and artist-creator interactions regarding the statues interprets how the monuments styles and concepts were generated out of the politics and ideology of the era.

We’re standing beside Littlefield Fountain. In front of the fountain is one of the most popular places to take graduation photos. Hundreds of people take their pictures there every year, but very few have any idea why the fountain is here, or even what it symbolizes.
Looking closely at the statues that are part of the fountain, we have a woman with various objects held on high, with two men standing behind her on the bow of a ship that seems to be heading somewhere dragged by some demon-looking people. The ship is named Columbia, the date in Roman numerals on the side of the ship is April 6, 1917. One wonders what this assemblage is doing here on the campus in central Texas, and how it relates to the rest of the statuary that has been placed elsewhere in the Mall, much of which has to do with the Confederacy.
How do all these things fit together? Littlefield Fountain was sculpted by Pompeo Coppini, who is an Italian artist, expert in creating neoclassical bronze sculptures. George Washington Littlefield designated him to construct all the statues that you see here on the South Mall. Except for the one of George Washington, which Coppini created in the 1950’s.
Littlefield had been thinking about the South Mall project since 1915, the 50th anniversary of the end of the Civil War. He left the money to create and erect the sculptures when he passed in 1920. When Littlefield first conceptualized the project, he was in touch with Coppini to think through it’s feasibility, and gauge Coppini’s availability for creating the artwork.
Littlefield and Coppini had a number of other collaborations. In fact, there’s a Confederate memorial to Terry’s Texas Rangers in the South Mall of the Capitol Building, sculpted by Coppini and paid for by Littlefield. Coppini had also executed the memorial to the Confederate dead, also on the Capitol South Mall.
Coppini, when he heard Littlefield’s idea about creating these statues, had suggestions as well. Littlefield had wanted to make a grand entrance for the University of Texas. The statues were part of this idea, along with an arch of bronze that would span the entire entrance. Coppini told Littlefield he was interested in working on the project, but that he thought just having Confederate statues would limit the appeal of the installation, and be seen as divisive. As a consequence, Littlefield and Coppini decided to include Woodrow Wilson as well as the Littlefield Fountain instead of the arch as a memorial to World War I and the university’s veterans of that war.
What you see in the fountain is a woman who’s holding aloft the torch of liberty and some palm leaves for peace. She appears similar to Lady Liberty, or the Statue of Liberty. However she is the related figure Columbia.
When I was a child in the 1950’s, among other patriotic songs we learned in school was a song that goes: (sings)
♪ O Columbia! the gem of the ocean ♪
♪ The home of the brave and the free ♪
♪ The shrine of each patriot’s devotion, ♪
♪ A world offers homage to thee ♪
This Columbia is a mix of the Roman goddess Libertas and Victoria, Greek goddess Nike, who are the symbols of liberty and victory. Columbia is also a symbol of the United States, as well as the spirit of the frontier and of U.S. manifest destiny. Here it is, the United States’ notion of freedom and the American way coming to the rescue of the rest of the world in World War I. Behind her on the boat, which has as its figurehead an American eagle, are both a sailor and a soldier, symbols of the military might that the Untied States carries as it ensures liberty throughout the world and expands its domain. Columbia and her posse are dressed in Roman togas and sandals, symbolizing classical republicanism. It is an intensely militaristic, patriotic, and white nationalist tableau, which celebrates the ways in which the new South is re-emerging as an important part of this white supremacist nationalism.

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12. Neo-Confederate University

1933 architectural planning map of the University of Texas rendered by Paul Philippe Cret, with the location of the neo-confederate university tour stop marked.