Harvard University’s John Winthrop House, one of 12 undergraduate residential houses at the Ivy League institution, will change its name to Winthrop House, dropping the first name of the building’s two namesakes, thought by historians to be slaveowners, according to a report from The Harvard Crimson.
In 2023, a group of students organized a petition, signed by more than 1,000 Harvard affiliates, calling for Harvard to dename Winthrop House. Now, two years later, a review committee has landed on a solution that they believe honors the community’s demands to stop honoring slaveowners, while maintaining a familiar name on campus.
Winthrop House is thought to be named for two men, both named John Winthrop. One was the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and the other, his great-great-grandson, was a professor at Harvard College who served twice as interim president. The elder John enslaved at least seven people and sold 17 prisoners as slaves in the Pequot War between the Pequot tribe and English colonists. The younger John “likely” owned two enslaved individuals, according to a report by the review committee.
However, the committee’s report also found that the elder John Winthrop was not an official namesake for the residential house, even though the Winthrop website says it is named for two John Winthrops. Additionally, the committee found the house was designed to honor later Winthrop descendants, such as 1828 Harvard alumnus Robert Charles Winthrop, a staunch supporter of the Union in the Civil War.
The review committee ultimately acknowledged the “abhorrent” practices of both John Winthrops, but determined “the degree to which those beliefs and behaviors are a significant component of the life and legacy of both John Winthrops is a question that invites reasonable disagreement.”
“We could not agree that the overall legacy of these two men demanded removing their names from the house,” the committee wrote. “Professor Winthrop’s place in the naming of the house and his contributions to Harvard and to the scientific community have long been obscured. Because of this, the moral complications in their legacies seemed a more decisive factor.”
The committee continued, “Bearing in mind its charge to approach history ‘through a lens of reckoning and not forgetting,’ the committee agreed that to completely dename Winthrop House would reduce the likelihood that the broader Harvard Community might be afforded the opportunity to reckon with the institution’s history in a similarly profound way,” the report stated.
Dename Winthrop, the student coalition that submitted the renaming request, expressed disappointment in the decision, stating, “This is not the outcome we hoped for. Still, we are deeply grateful to the over 50 student leaders, the 1,000 affiliates who signed our denaming petition, the 20 student and alumni organizations, and the 50 descendants of Governor John Winthrop who spent two years researching, mobilizing, and advocating for denaming.”
