Swarthmore College Renames Academic Building to Honor Folklorist Kathryn L. Morgan

Valerie Smith, President of the Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, has recently announced that the College’s Old Science Hall was renamed Edley-Morgan Hall. The new name recognizes two illustrious members of the Swarthmore community: legal scholar Christopher F. Edley Jr. (1953–2024) and folklorist Kathryn L. Morgan (1919–2010).

The effort to rename Old Science Hall began in 2025 following a discovery that the building’s former namesake engaged in unethical research and teaching practices more than a century ago.

Dr. Kathryn L. Morgan was a pioneering folklorist, educator, historian, storyteller, and poet. Born and raised in Philadelphia, she earned an MA at Howard University in history and an MA and PhD in folklore from University of Pennsylvania. She was among the first African Americans to earn a PhD in folklore studies. After a stint at University of Delaware Newark and later as visiting associate professor at Bryn Mawr College, Haverford College, and a quarter at University of California-Berkeley, she joined the history department faculty of Swarthmore College as the college’s first African American professor, teaching courses in oral history, folk history, and folklife. When she began teaching folklore within the history department, her interests in folklore were considered outside the mainstream. However, beloved as a teacher, she became the first African American woman to earn tenure there and eventually was honored with the title of Sarah Lawrence Lightfoot Emerita Professor of History and Folklore. She retired in 1995 after 25 years at Swarthmore.