Name: Jesse Macy House
Nickname: Macy House
Address: 1205 Park St.
Purpose: Houses many of the College’s distinguished programs

The house brings together programs that regularly enrich the lives of Grinnellians by bringing special speakers and performers to campus, providing new and unusual research opportunities, and bridging the boundaries between academic disciplines. Programs housed here include: Center for Prairie Studies, Rosenfield Program in Public Affairs, Center for Humanities, Peace Studies, Off-Campus Study, and Center for International Studies.

Fun Fact

The house is named in honor of Jesse Macy 1870, a highly respected professor and one of the foremost political scientists of his time. Macy was drafted into military service during the Civil War, where he served as a Quaker noncombatant. After the war, he returned to Grinnell to graduate, and then returned again in 1885 as a professor of political science. He devoted himself to teaching and to writing many books on political, social, religious, and international subjects, including one of the earliest U.S. government textbooks, aptly named Our Government. He formed close associations with people such as inventor James Bryce and playwright George Bernard Shaw.