In 2002 the new Thomas H. Eliot House was constructed on the South 40.
Known first as “University House,” in 2005 the Eliot name was transferred to this new residence house, which replaced the older highrise that had carried the name since 1964.
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 also 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.