Matthew Warshauer, a professor of history in Central Connecticut, wrote an article refuting the myth that the original statue on the dome of the Capitol was demolished and destroyed from 1878 to 1938.

The Connecticut genius statue in the rotunda of the State Capitol is a replica of the original sculpture in 2009. It stood on the golden dome of the Capitol from 1878 to 1938.

The Connecticut State Capitol in Hartford.

The Connecticut State Capitol in Hartford.

The heroine of Connecticut, Prudence Crandall, founded a short-term school for black girls in the 1800s.

A professor at Central Connecticut State University broke the false story about the "Connecticut genius" for more than a century. This allegorical statue stood on the top of the State Capitol for 60 years and then was demolished before World War II, just to recast in recent years , Here has become the highlight of tourism.

The true story of this statue took place when the state was preparing to hoist a modern replica of "The Genius" back to the golden dome at a cost of $500,000.

The popular history surrounding the original 18-foot-tall, winged national protector-her flowing gown, the oak leaf crown that represents the state tree, her right hand holding a wreath of dried flowers, and the mountain laurel tree on the left, the state flower-notorious in 1938 The hurricane loosened the mooring of the statue, prompting state officials to tow it from the 257-foot high dome to a safe place.

Then came the Second World War, when bronze was said to have been sacrificed heroically and used to make ammunition with great fanfare. Fortunately, the full-scale plaster model used by the sculptor Randolph Rogers dates back to 1878 when the State Capitol was opened.

CCSU history professor and expert on the role and experience of the nation in the civil war, Matthew Worshall said in an article in the Connecticut Historical Review that the story is more subtle and that popular memories are wrong.

"It's all a myth," Warshauer said in a recent interview. He used contemporary newspaper reports dating back to the 1800s to trace this mystery.

He opposed the plan to hoist a 5,500-pound, 12-year-old replica of the original statue (located on a $30,000 stone base below the rotunda of the Capitol) back to the dome at an estimated cost of $500,000, including In the current state budget.

Warshauer believes that funds should be raised across the state to pay for this cost, similar to paying for the popular statues of the national heroine Prudence Crandall and a young black female student sculptor Gabriel Koren (Gabriel Koren) This is the idea of ​​Bristol school children, and it has been exhibited in the Houses of Parliament since 2009.

He believes that recruiting a heavy helicopter from Lockheed Martin's Sikorsky Commercial Aircraft Division can save hundreds of thousands of dollars. "Hartford is always looking for a way to highlight the history of their city," Warshauer said.

"The genius was not dismantled because of the hurricane, and patriotism did not determine her fate during World War II," Walshall wrote. "On the contrary, the Capitol and the genius who decorated it have always been controversial, even controversial works of art."

In 1903, when the statue was removed from the dome for the first time, she stretched out her arm to symbolically protect the residents of the state. At that time, there were disagreements on how to handle the work. The second time was after the hurricane in 1938, when the dome and statue suffered decades of negligence in New England, and the weather got worse due to the fracture of the foundation supporting it.

"Her relocation was not out of love or a firm concern for her return," Warshauer found when talking about the relocation in 1938. "On the contrary, she was unceremoniously beheaded and mutilated, and fell to the ground piece by piece."

Originally called the "Resurrection Angel", this is also the name of the Rogers sculpture. It marks the tomb of the gun manufacturer Samuel Colt at Hartford Cedar Hill Cemetery. This statue is inside and outside of 14 civil war monuments. One of 19 monuments. -The acre of Capitol Complex is the largest of all state capitals in the country. The Capitol itself was built to commemorate the Civil War, which was still fresh in the state's mind in 1878.

By 1903, it began to sway slightly in the breeze, prompting the establishment of a national committee and scaffolding. The workers found a crack in the foundation of the supporting statue. This sparked a public debate about whether it should return to the top of the Capitol.

In 1904, engineers disagreed on the best course of action. An iron support rod was replaced by a bronze rod and the statue was dragged back to the top of the dome. But during a routine building inspection in 1935, workers saw signs of damage to the tower that supported the genius. In the 1870s, architect Richard Upjohn had no plans to design a dome for the building, but state lawmakers insisted.

When Upjohn said he needed 10 huge granite piers to support the dome, a legislative committee voted to save $6,000 by ordering brick piers. "This is the first error," Warshauer wrote. The piers that stretched to the basement began to crack in 1878 and must be supported by injecting molten metal.

The huge hurricane that killed 600 people in the northeast on September 21 did not damage the statue, but it was doomed to its fate. Within 10 days, the workers cut off her head with a saw, and then the rest of the body, putting down each piece with a rope. "As later claimed in the history of the statue, the debate about saving her never happened," Warshauer wrote.

The fragments of the dismembered statue were stored in the basement of the Capitol until the metal drive was held for the war effort. The fragments of the statue were unceremoniously thrown into the trash can along with other metal fragments in the basement of the Capitol. "Thank you very much for the patriotic dedication of donating geniuses to the war," Walshall wrote.

Fortunately, the full-scale plaster model remained in the Capitol, so the new, lighter statue was created using high-tech lasers and computer measurements. The new genius was cast into three pieces by the Polich Tallix Fine Art Foundry of Rock Tavern, New York.

Efforts to make a new copy of Genius can be traced back to 2003. By 2006, 300,000 US dollars in the state budget were used to recast a new statue, while also misrepresenting historic hurricanes and patriotic attitudes against fascism.

kdixon@ctpost.com Twitter: @KenDixonCT

A native of Connecticut and a graduate of Stanford High School, Ken Dixon graduated from Ohio University with a degree in journalism. He is also the most valuable player on the Ohio University football team. He reported on suburban communities and Bridgeport City Hall, and then began reporting on the State Capitol and the state government in 1994. He has won awards from the National Association of Professional Journalists and the National Press Club; multiple awards from the National Press Columnists Association; and numerous news and column writing awards from the State Chapter of the Professional Journalists Association. He still likes to play football and is a member of a rock band.