Committee recommends maintaining name of Winthrop House, adding historical context

The Review Committee assigned to consider the request from petitioners to dename the John Winthrop House has delivered its report to Harvard President Alan Garber and Edgerley Family Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) Hopi Hoekstra. Garber and Hoekstra have accepted the committee’s recommendation to maintain the “Winthrop” name and remove the name “John,” so that, going forward, the undergraduate residential House will be known formally as Winthrop House.   

In the report, the Review Committee details the history of the John Winthrop name and the considerations included in the denaming request. Incorporated in 1931, the House was named after Professor John Winthrop (1714-1779), the second Hollis Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy and twice the interim president of Harvard. Archival records reviewed by the committee revealed that Winthrop’s great-great-grandfather, Massachusetts Gov. John Winthrop (1588-1649), is not a namesake of the House, though he was long thought to be. Still, the committee recognized that both Winthrops have been associated with the House, and both have complicated histories with slavery, as outlined in the report. 

Bearing in mind that Winthrop House stood out among the 12 residential Houses as the only one with a full given name, removing “John” would also bring the House in line with all other Houses, the committee wrote in their recommendation: 

“Ultimately, the process of thinking through these questions resulted in something richer for the committee than straightforward answers. The deep engagement with Harvard and its history that we pursued did generate some pride. But it also produced a fitting discomfort with the question of what it means to be a part of an institution whose past is long, complicated, and at times dark, and whose present cannot be untangled from the whole of its past. This rich and complicated involvement with our place seems both appropriate and fulfilling. 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.”

In addition to removing “John” but keeping “Winthrop” in the name of the House, the committee recommended that the FAS and Harvard College work with Winthrop affiliates to seek creative opportunities for residents and other community members to learn about the House’s history and to engage with its complexities — work that will begin during the summer and stretch into future years. 

Sean Kelly, Teresa G. and Ferdinand F. Martignetti Professor of Philosophy and Harvard College Professor and now FAS dean of Arts and Humanities, was appointed by Hoekstra to lead the committee, which was comprised of three senior faculty members (two from the FAS and one from Harvard Law School), as well as one senior FAS administrator and one senior University administrator. 

The committee engaged in robust community conversations to review the denaming request. They met as a group 22 times and participated in more than 35 outreach conversations. They received more than 100 responses to an online survey created to collect anonymous community feedback.  

In considering the denaming request, the committee met with the petitioners, as well as Winthrop residents, leaders, and alumni. Student organizations, including the Generational African American Students Association, the Black Students Association, and Natives at Harvard College, also took part in conversations, as did descendants of the Winthrop family and members of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation. To strengthen their review of literature and primary sources, the committee also engaged the New England Historical Genealogical Society, now known as American Ancestors, and a historian of colonial New England and held multiple conversations with faculty with expertise in history, focusing on the time periods of both John Winthrops. 

The committee’s investigation into the Winthrop name and legacy surfaced broader questions of how to grapple with complex history and address barriers to belonging. About these challenges, the committee wrote:  

“These enduring fault lines cannot be mitigated through the singular act of denaming; it will require a multipronged approach that engenders courageous inquiry about the complexities of our past in the present — and future — and a more profound commitment to the virtues of belonging. Only then can we advance and sustain a ‘culture of belonging’ integral to how we learn, work, teach, and live at Harvard.” 

The full report is posted online at https://www.harvard.edu/denamingproposals/winthrop-house/.