One of my life’s dreams is to have a rest stop named after me on the New Jersey Turnpike, joining the ranks of Thomas Edison, Vince Lombardi, and some guy who wrote a poem this one time. But since I’d actually have to live in Jersey for that to happen, I suppose I’d settle for a building named after me here at Northwestern. It seems simple enough: Make a ton of money (shouldn’t be too hard with a journalism degree, right?) wait for them to build something, and pony up the dough. But it seems someone named Swift is hogging not one, but two buildings for him/herself. Who is this Swift character? And what makes them so damn special?

Not surprisingly, the answer is money. Lots of it. The donor behind both Swift and Annie May Swift Halls is (shockingly enough) the Swift family, more specifically Gustavus F. Swift. Making his money in the meatpacking business, Swift was a classic 19^th century, Mr. Burns-esque tycoon. In addition to being an impressive innovator, pioneering the use of refrigerated rail cars and vertical integration, he was also notoriously efficient, and was known to scour his plant’s drainage areas for usable scraps. His South Side plant was supposedly the inspiration behind Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, which your high school history teacher will tell you described scenes so horrifying that it resulted in new federal laws regulating the cleanliness of the meat packing industry.

In addition to being kind of a hardass, Swift was also a philanthropist, and donated huge sums of money to both Northwestern and the University of Chicago. When his daughter Annie May died while attending NU in 1889, he donated much of the funding to finish construction on a building for the School of Oratory (now the School of Communication) which was dedicated in 1895 as Annie May Swift Hall. The Swift family continued to donate to NU through the years, and even after Gustavus’ death in 1903 his widow and their son, Edward, donated the bulk of the money for a second building, with the family name but not specifically in memorial to anyone, thus confusing the hell out of freshman who didn’t realize their class was on the other side of campus.

Thanks to Associate Archivist Kevin Leonard for his help in this article.

Something on your mind? Or just want to knock my unmotivated Jersey bashing? Send questions to ubernerdnbn@gmail.com.