Memorial Object

Plaque/Marker

Anti-Civil Rights

Hawthorne, Nathaniel

Stone memorializing Nathaniel Hawthorne

The “Walk of Fame” was created in 1929 by then president Hamilton Holt to honor significant historical figures. The memorial is located in the center of campus around Mills Lawn. 

Nathaniel Hawthorne was an American novelist who lived from 1804 to 1864. He is most well-known for his novels "The Scarlet Letter" and "The House of the Seven Gables."

Unlike many northerners at the time, Hawthorne was not a supporter of abolition. While he did not own slaves, he was not a supporter of abolition. Rather believed that slavery was something that would go away on its own. Hawthorne believed that being White was a fundamental requirement to participating in American democracy. Additionally, like many of his Democratic friends, he did not think slavery was important enough to risk destroying the Union. Finally, he shared many southerners' perspectives that slavery was better than northern wage labor, writing in 1851, "I have not, as you suggest, the slightest sympathy for the slaves; or, at least, not half as much as for the laboring whites, who, I believe, are ten times worse off than the Southern negroes."

Hawthorne's stone in the Walk of Fame was not just due to his literary prowess but also because of his connection to Hamilton Holt’s great-uncle William Tappan. Tappan loaned Hawthorne his Little Red House so that he could write some of his short stories. The stone for Hawthorne’s Walk of Fame memorial came from the foundation of this building after it burned down. The stone was installed in Rollins College's Walk of Fame between 1929 and 1939.

Holt, Hamilton

Stone: 19.5in by 10.5in
This is a dark brown/grey oval shaped stone that is taken from the foundation of the Little Red House.

Hawthorne
Lenox

Hamilton Holt

1939

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

Hamilton Holt

Walk of Fame

Rollins College; Winter Park, Florida

https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q69339

Hawthorne and Racism

Hawthorne

Stone memorializing Nathaniel Hawthorne