In 1972, the new social sciences building opened, named for Joseph Grégoire de Roulhac Hamilton, a longtime professor of history and founder of the Southern Historical Collection. In his scholarship, influenced heavily by his training at Columbia University under William Dunning, Hamilton took a racist view of the Reconstruction period, praising the Ku Klux Klan for “lift[ing] the South from its slough of despond.” Hamilton Hall, now the home of the Department of History, remains a site of contestation as student groups demand for the removal of Hamilton’s name from the building.
Space Use: Academic
Spatial Organizing Approach: Contestation
Date Created: 1972
Campus Space: Saunders Hall
Citation: Liz Mason-Deese, “Map in Ruptures, Vol. 1,” Counter Cartographies Collective, 11 November 2017.