Mead Chapel name removed in acknowledgement of its namesake role in eugenics

Mead Chapel name removed in acknowledgement of its namesake role in eugenics

College renames Mead Chapel to The Middlebury Chapel, due to namesake John Mead promoting eugenics in VT in the early 1900s.

Riley Board
Lucy Townend
Abigail Chang

The Campus

09/27/2021

"In 1914, Mead and his wife Mary Madelia Sherman donated $74,000 to the college to create a new chapel. In 1912, two years before his donation, Mead gave a farewell address to the Vermont legislature in which he advocated for the use of eugenic theory in creating legislation and policy. His comments in that speech about marriage restrictions, segregation, and sterilization inspired the research behind the Eugenics Survey of Vermont and led to the legalization of voluntary eugenical sterilization two decades later."