Locating Slavery's Legacies @ Sewanee: The University of the South

Memorial Structure

Named Building

Enslaver

Anti-Civil Rights

Lost Cause

LeConte, Joseph

LeConte Hall; Department of History building named for Joseph LeConte

LeConte Hall is the home of the Department of History at the University of Georgia. It was designed by Robert Driftier and Roy Hitchcock and built in 1938 with federal funding from the Public Works Administration (PWA). It originally served as a classroom building for the sciences before being designated for history in 1960.

The building was named for Joseph LeConte, who is best known as a physician, geologist, professor at the University of California, Berkeley and early California conservationist. Joseph and his brother John, a physicist, descended from a wealth slave-owning family in Georgia. Joseph graduated from the University of Georgia in 1841. He went on to study and practice medicine for several years before entering Harvard University to study natural history. He would later work as a professor in the natural sciences and geology for Oglethorpe University, the University of Georgia, South Carolina College (now the University of South Carolina), and the University of California, Berkeley.

During the Civil War, LeConte contributed to the Confederate war effort through his research and development role in the Confederate Nitre and Mining Bureau, which sought to provide mineral and chemical resources for the purpose of supplying munitions. After the war, LeConte expressed strong anti-Reconstruction views and objected to voting rights for African Americans.

In 1869, LeConte moved west and joined the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley. In 1870, he explored the Sierra Nevada and met fellow conservationist John Muir. He co-founded the Sierra Club with Muir in 1892. LeConte died in 1901.

UC Berkeley had a building named LeConte Hall for John and Joseph LeConte until 2020 when the campus Building Name Review Committee voted to remove their name from the building in response to their racist views.

Three-story brick and stucco academic building.

Public Works Administration

University of Georgia; Athens, Georgia

1938

1890-1945: Era of the Lost Cause, Jim Crow legal segregation and discrimination, and organized anti-Black racism

Public Works Administration

University of Georgia; Athens, Georgia

https://www.architects.uga.edu/home/historic-preservation/hpmp-galleries/leconte-hall

https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/leconte-family/