The Renaming of Trotter Hall: Explaining the College’s Decision and What Comes Next 

Correction: The original article said that Trotter Hall received its name in 1979. The correct date is 1937.

On Dec. 12, 2025, President Val Smith announced that Trotter Hall and Trotter Lawn will be renamed. The news came after more than two years of investigation into the activities and writings of Spencer Trotter, a biology professor at Swarthmore College from 1888 to 1926. The decision follows the college’s May 2023 apology for Trotter’s 1899 excavation of a Lenape burial site in Chester County and the subsequent display of those remains on campus.

For many students, the building diagonal to Parrish has simply been a place for history, political science, classics, and global studies classes. The name it has carried since 1937, however, tells a more complicated story. In her December message to the community, President Smith described the decision as requiring the college to confront “disturbing practices” from its past.

The Excavation and Its Aftermath

In 1899, Spencer Trotter, a natural history scholar with a medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania, and student Bird T. Baldwin ’00, excavated a human skeleton from a Lenape burial ground in Newlin Township, Chester County, formerly known as Indian Knoll Farms.

Later that same year, Trotter displayed that skeleton and the funerary items found with it during a campus meeting of the Joseph Leidy Scientific Association. Described by the Friends’ Intelligencer and Journal as “the chief feature of the evening,” the remains were eventually lost; the college has been unable to determine how long they remained on campus or where they ultimately ended up.

“No matter the educational intentions or that these practices may have been commonplace at the time they occurred, these remains should have been treated with dignity and respect and should never have been removed from their burial site,” Smith wrote in her initial May 2023 statement. Smith went on to describe the collection of Native American remains as “unethical and inexcusable,” and apologized on behalf of the college for the harm they caused. 

The college launched its investigation following an April 2022 Philadelphia Inquirer article about efforts to return the Newlin Township property to Native American ownership. The Delaware Nation, based in Oklahoma, is now the legal owner of the burial ground.

Trotter’s Writings on Racial Hierarchy

While the excavation alone might have warranted scrutiny, Trotter’s academic writings reveal a broader pattern of fascination with racial hierarchy. This ideology informed his scientific work and his understanding of human populations.

In a textbook passage, Trotter wrote of Indigenous peoples: “Many of them, like the aboriginal Australians, are among the lowest of mankind; others, again, have reached a considerable degree of culture, as the various Polynesian peoples. The Indian peoples of America are probably descendants from some primitive Asian stock.”

In a 1917 article titled “The Fundamental Nature of Population,” published in a scientific journal, Trotter elaborated on these views. On page 271, he wrote: “The whole question turns upon the intelligent exploitation of the soil; a people of low agricultural instincts may occupy a land that would yield a hundredfold to another people of high agricultural instincts … Just such a condition prevailed among the aborigines of America … living a hand-to-mouth existence in a land that later was capable of supporting many millions of intelligent, agricultural Europeans.”

These passages reflect what scholars now recognize as scientific racism: the use of purportedly objective criteria to justify racial hierarchies and colonial expansion. Trotter framed European colonization as the natural, inevitable outcome of supposed differences in “agricultural instincts” between populations.

Trotter also wrote about what he termed “racial subconscious quality,” describing social sentiments as originating not in individual consciousness “but in the subconscious flow that permeates the whole mass of population.” His framework primarily positioned racial identity as deterministic and fixed.

Trotter as an Ornithologist and Collector

Trotter was also a founder of the Delaware Valley Ornithological Club (DVOC) in 1890. His passion for bird study characterized much of his scientific career. His ornithological research included detailed observations of mockingbirds in Bucks County and studies of American songbirds.

Trotter’s collecting impulse, which served his ornithological work, manifested more sinisterly in his handling of human remains. The same era that saw naturalists gathering specimens from the natural world also saw anthropologists and anatomists collecting human remains, often from marginalized populations and almost always without consent.

As President Smith noted in her May 2023 statement, “Philadelphia — as the location of the country’s first medical school — was a hub for the legal sale of human skeletons for medical and research purposes. However, we now know that those specimens often were not sourced ethically and may have come disproportionately from underrepresented populations.”

The college’s investigation, conducted with assistance from bioarchaeologist Kimberly Williams of Temple University, found no evidence that Native American remains were still kept on campus. However, the review did prompt the college to decommission all human specimens in the biology department’s osteology collection. In Smith’s 2023 statement, she acknowledged that these remains “likely came from people without their consent — people who were denied their traditions, rituals, and right to rest in peace.”

The Community Response

The decision to rename Trotter Hall has not been without controversy. In a Fall 2023 Alumni Bulletin letter, Steve Harari ’78 criticized the move: “I also don’t see the merit in renaming Trotter Hall … Revisionist behavior like this undermines Swarthmore’s mission of intellectual honesty and curiosity.”

President Smith acknowledged these concerns in her December announcement, noting that some community members felt “removing the name could be seen as an attempt to hide from or erase our past.” She emphasized that the college remains “fully committed to acknowledging, learning, and growing from this moment.”

The building has carried multiple identities over its history. Originally opened as Science Hall after the great fire of 1881, the building followed the Quaker and Swarthmore tradition, where buildings were named for their function rather than individuals. It became Trotter Hall in 1937, six years after Trotter’s death.

During the renaming process, the building will temporarily revert to “Old Science Hall,” its original designation. A task force chaired by Associate Professor of Psychology and Associate Dean of the Faculty Cat Norris will guide the selection of a new permanent name, with a recommendation due to President Smith by May 1, 2026 and sent for Board of Managers approval.

The task force includes students, faculty, and staff, and has been charged with creating opportunities for campus engagement. Members include Professor of English Nora Johnson, College Archivist David Obermayer, Danika Grieser ’26, and Ayla Gordon-Mandel ’27, among others. According to a member of the task force, the group is currently in its planning stages, and the bulk of the renaming work will occur in March and April. 

A key component of the renaming process involves preserving the institutional memory of what Trotter did and why it matters. President Smith has asked the task force to collaborate with Friends Historical Library and College Archives “to ensure that this moment is documented as part of our evolving institutional history.”

“Removing the Trotter name is not merely a matter of renaming spaces,” she wrote. “It is an acknowledgment of harm, a commitment to learn from our past, and an affirmation of our responsibility to care for the stories and legacies held on this campus.”

The college has also committed to broader changes, including forming the Audit and Risk Managing Committee, to conduct a college-wide review of all collections and developing ethical standards for acquisition, use, and repatriation of items.

The task force will meet throughout the spring to develop a renaming proposal, with community engagement sessions planned for March and April. Any new name will require the Board of Managers’ approval before it appears on campus maps or building facades. The Audit and Risk Management Committee is simultaneously beginning its college-wide review of collections, though no timeline has been set for that process.

The work of the task force to rename Trotter Hall is a developing story.