Thomas H. Eliot Hall

Eliot Hall was a concrete building located immediately west of McMillan Hall. It was named after Thomas Hopkinson Eliot.

Thomas H. Eliot Hall was dedicated in April 1974.

Eliot Hall was removed to build Knight Hall and Bauer Hall in its place.


Thomas H. Eliot

Thomas H. Eliot graduated from Harvard Law School, served a term in the U.S. House of Representatives, practiced law in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and taught in the Harvard Law School. He came to Washington University in St. Louis in 1952 as chair of the Department of Political Science, in which he later taught, as well as in the School of Law, and he is a distant relative of William Greenleaf Eliot, the university’s founder.

Eliot served as Washington University’s 12th chancellor from 1962 to 1971, and held administrative posts in the U.S. Departments of Labor, the Social Security Board, and the Interior. He assisted the U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain, was a member of the House of Representatives in the 77th Congress, and served as director of the Massachusetts “Little Hoover” commission on reorganization of the state government. He was named to the Charles Nagel Professorship of Constitutional Law and Political Science in 1958, and authored the well-respected book Governing America: The Politics of a Free People.

Eliot House, on the South 40, is also named after Thomas H. Eliot.