David Frank: The case against Villard
Why Henry Villard’s Name Should be Removed from the Pacific Northwest Landscape
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David Frank has been a professor at the University of Oregon since 1981. He is a resident faculty member in the Clark Honors College and is an affiliated faculty member in the department of English's program in rhetoric. He served as dean of the Clark Honors College from 2008 - 2013.
Villard is more than just a name; and, it’s him as a man that matters most today.
For twelve years, my University of Oregon office was located in Villard Hall—named after Henry Villard (1835-1900) because of a $5,000 gift to the University in 1881 that saved it from bankruptcy. I do not remember the portrait of Henry Villard (see above) that hung in the University’s second oldest hall, nor was I curious about Villard the man. I had assumed that Villard, like Judge Matthew Deady (1824-1893) whose name, until 2020, was on the University’s oldest hall, was a man of accomplishment.
I was wrong to be incurious about Villard’s heritage and wrong to assume that he was a man deserving the honor the University gave to him by naming a hall after him.
Having read the scholarship on Villard, I now know better.
Historians have marshalled substantial evidence that Villard engaged in ruthless and unethical business practices—he was a “robber baron.” To construct a railway system in the Pacific Northwest, Villard built a financial empire between 1876 and 1884 on the shaky foundation of shady financial deals and Ponzi schemes, which collapsed in 1885. He was forced into retirement. His deplorable behavior extended beyond business; Villard was also a racist. Villard imported Chinese laborers (“coolies”) to build his railway system. They were severely mistreated, a result he ascribed to the costs of empire-building.
Time for a new name
Villard’s name should be removed from the University of Oregon hall that bears his name and from the landscape of the Pacific Northwest.
The removal of Villard’s name from a hall at the University of Oregon and from the landscape of the Pacific Northwest would be consistent with the University of Oregon’s act of denaming three halls in the last twenty years (Grayson Hall, Dunn Hall, Deady Hall) when evidence of financial corruption and racism attached to the names assigned these halls became prominent.
Denaming Villard Hall would likewise be consistent with similar efforts to reserve honorable recognition for those worthy of such treatment: it would be consistent with denaming halls at other universities (including Harvard and Yale Universities); consistent with the removal of Confederate monuments by Southern states (including the states of Alabama and South Carolina); and, consistent with the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021, legislating the denaming of ten military bases with names of Confederate generals (including Fort Robert E. Lee). We can easily dismiss the claims that these actions reflect “political correctness” when the actors include the U.S. Military and Birmingham, Alabama. The names and symbols we attach to our geography should represent our values.
Denaming at the UO
Jeff Grayson, like Villard, a wealthy man and a UO donor, was, like Villard, repaid by the University with the gift of naming a building after him in 1999. He was later charged and convicted of what was, as the Willamette Week reported, “the largest union pension fraud in U.S. history.” Like Villard, Grayson’s wealth was the result of a Ponzi scheme. The UO returned the money. The Grayson name was removed from the Hall in 2002 and renamed McKenzie Hall.
Dunn Hall was denamed in 2016 because Frederick Dunn was the "Exalted Cyclops" of Eugene Klan No. 3, a Ku Klux Klan group. Dunn Hall is now Unthank Hall. (read more about DeNorval Unthank Jr. here).
Deady’s history of racism, in the wake of the George Floyd murder, prompted University of Oregon President Michael Schill and Board of Trustees to dename the building on June 24, 2020. Deady supported slavery and was the lead author of the 1857 Oregon Constitution that excluded blacks from the state. Deady Hall, which neighbored Villard Hall, is now University Hall.
Villard, like Grayson, was guilty of financial corruption, and like Dunn and Deady, complicit with racism, which justifies denaming the building named after him.
Villard the Robber Barron
The phrase “Robber Barron” strikes an odd sounding note to the modern ear. Coined in 1870 to describe 19th-century American businessmen like Villard and Grayson, robber barons used illegal tactics, unethical strategies, and the law to create monopolies, concentrate power, and amass great personal wealth. One source of our present economic inequity can be traced to the successes of the robber barons.
A German national, Villard recognized the opportunity to seize and exploit the great natural resources of Oregon and the Pacific Northwest. He raised the funds necessary to create the Oregon Transportation and Navigation Company and Oregon Improvement Company (OIC), among others, and fought with another robber baron, Jay Gould, for control of the first major railway project in the Pacific Northwest.
To outperform Gould, Villard set up investment portfolios that were the product, in the words of Stanford historian Richard White, of “lies” and “contradictions.” In an era of bad businesses practices, Villard’s portfolios were so egregious that he qualified as the “king of bad entrepreneurs” and the “superhero of bad management”—titles that summarized his mastery of the quicksand of Ponzi schemes. Oregonians from Portland lost somewhere between two and three million dollars due to Villard’s spectacularly inept management practices.
For a time, he was much loved in Oregon and the Pacific Northwest. Villard used his money to promote a positive image of himself. He engaged in very small acts—given his wealth—of philanthropy. Villard’s gift to the University of Oregon was not made out of love for the state, but to secure the support of Deady and the citizens of Oregon for his railway and transportation companies.
Judge Deady and Villard were collaborators. The Judge owned $20,000 of Oregon Improvement Company and held other stakes in Villard’s businesses; he also heard court cases involving several companies owned by Villard. Judge Deady found in favor of Villard’s companies, which is neither surprising nor simply a case of bribery for Deady was a strong proponent of unregulated capitalism and unbridled corporate power. Villard, with the help of Deady and the powers of unregulated capital, did build the transportation infrastructure for the Pacific Northwest, but did so on the backs of 15,000 Chinese national laborers.
Villard the Racist
Villard hired Chinese national laborers because he could pay them $1.00 per day; American born workers were paid $1.50 per day. Chinese national laborers worked in the most dangerous areas and took on life-threatening tasks. Over 1,000 Chinese workers lost their lives during the construction of Villard’s railways. Most remain buried in unmarked graves. Historians record that Chinese laborers were treated as slave laborers.
When the Chinese laborers were no longer needed, they were discharged without plans for transition. A number of Chinese laborers sought housing and employment in Seattle, Tacoma, Portland, and Southern Oregon, which prompted significant anti-Chinese resistance. This resistance took the form of riots in Seattle, Tacoma, and Portland, and in an explicit anti-Asian racism embodied in culture and law. While Villard was an abolitionist, his anti-racism did not extend to his take on the economy or the Chinese laborer. Villard’s great-great granddaughter explains how his status as a robber baron informed his view of the Chinese laborer:
After manner of empire builders everywhere, Villard paid little heed to the plight of many whose labors turned his vision into reality. Hundreds of them were buried in unmarked graves near the tracks they died building; as for the thousands of survivors, most of them Chinese, when work or money ran out they were simply discharged, strangers in a strange and hostile land, to make their way as they might. For Villard, who looked beyond the fates of individuals, these were painful but unavoidable facts, worthwhile sacrifices to achieve a greater good.
Villard did, however, have a plan for white settlers he recruited from Europe.
That Oregon is a white state can be credited to Villard and Deady. Villard advertised in Northern European countries and set up emigration agencies to encourage Germans, Scandinavians, and the English to emigrate and settle in the Pacific Northwest. He was among the most important agents of Northern European immigration into the Pacific Northwest. Deady’s Oregon Constitution, which forbade Blacks from entering the state, complemented Villard’s efforts.
Villard the unworthy
To remain consistent with the denaming of Grayson, Dunn, and Deady Halls, the University of Oregon should dename Villard Hall. Other institutions should follow suit.
Villard’s name is not only on a hall at the University of Oregon, it is embedded in the landscape of the Pacific Northwest. Villard glacier, for example, is located on the slopes of the North Sister mountain in the Cascade Range. If you drive up I-5, beginning at the Oregon-California border, you will encounter Villard Street in Ashland and a Villard Avenue in Cottage Grove. As I drive to campus, I pass by Villard Street in Eugene. There is a Villard Place in Oregon City, a Villard Avenue in Portland, and a Villard Street in Tacoma. Until 1895, Seattle hosted a Villard Avenue.
The Great Seattle Fire of 1889 burned some 25 city blocks. In the wake of the burn, city leaders took the opportunity to rename what had been a confused and confusing grid of the city. On December 16, 1895, the City Council of Seattle passed ordinance 4044, which changed a number of street and avenue names. Among these changes—Villard Avenue became Queen Anne Avenue. I cannot find in the records the reason why the council dropped Villard in favor of Queen Anne, however, by 1895 the truth had emerged about Villard. He was, by then, recognized in the Pacific Northwest as corrupt and unethical.
The cities of Ashland, Cottage Grove, Eugene, Oregon City, Portland, and Tacoma should follow Seattle’s lead and dename the streets and avenues named after Villard. And the major cities in the Pacific Northwest should follow Tacoma’s lead and establish memorials recognizing and apologizing for the treatment of Chinese immigrants in the 1880s.
Why denaming matters
Oregonians deserve to walk the streets of those who embodied the best of Oregon, to enter buildings named for role models, and to hike the peaks designated for true leaders. Villard was in no way the best of his time; he excelled in fraud and hate at a time when the country needed neither. His role in history is worthy of study, but it is in no way worthy of contemporary honor.
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Good to see distaste for the Robber Barrons of the past, not just the racists. The modern day Robber Barrons who have been and are against the fundamental right of workers to stick together and have pursued public policies that have led to the gross wealth and income inequality ought not be getting the name recognition as well.