Winthrop Hall was known as Winthrop House when it was built in 1916, as it provided housing for students. It became a Hall when six new houses—the North Complex, or Plex— were built in the 1960s and the rooms in Winthrop were converted to faculty offices. These days it's where faculty in Economics, Government and History work.

As you undoubtedly noticed right away, it was designed in a Colonial Revival style rather than Collegiate Gothic style of other early campus buildings. In fact, its style is probably all you've thought about when you saw how different it was. But fear not: The interior layout was quite similar to the other buildings.

The building was named for John Winthrop the Younger, an early governor of the Connecticut colony who founded our hometown of New London in 1644.