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Sheffield Scientific School

Sheffield Scientific School was founded in 1847 as a school of Yale College in New Haven, Connecticut, for instruction in science and engineering. Originally named the Yale Scientific School, it was renamed in 1861 in honor of Joseph E. Sheffield, a railroad executive. The school was incorporated in 1871. The Sheffield Scientific School helped establish the model for the transition of U.S. higher education from a classical model to one which incorporated both the sciences and the liberal arts. Following World War I, however, its curriculum gradually became completely integrated with Yale College. "The Sheff" ceased to function as a separate entity in 1956.

Type

Private

1847 (1847)–1956 (1956)

Yale University

New Haven
,
Connecticut
,
United States

Education and student life[edit]

The Sheffield School innovated with an undergraduate course offering science and mathematics as well as economics, English, geography, history, modern languages, philology and political science. Sheffield also pioneered graduate education in the United States, granting the first Ph.D. in the United States in 1861 as well as the first engineering Ph.D. to Josiah Willard Gibbs in 1863, and the first geology Ph.D. to William North Rice in 1867.


Unlike Yale College students at the time, Sheffield students had "no dorms, no required chapel, no disciplinary marks and no proctors".[5] The Academical Department of Yale (Ac) and Sheffield (Sheff) became rivals. Loomis Havemeyer, alumnus and registrar at Sheffield, stated: "During the second half of the nineteenth century Yale College and Sheffield Scientific School, separated by only a few streets, were two separate countries on the same planet." The Ac students studied liberal arts and would look down on the practical Sheff students.


Sheffield had its own student secret societies (aka final clubs or senior societies, some also known by their Greek letters) including the Colony Club, 1848 (now Berzelius), the Cloister, 1863 (now Book and Snake), St. Anthony Hall, 1867 (now a 3-year society, also called Delta Psi), St. Elmo, 1889 (also a senior society), as well as Franklin Hall, 1865 (Theta Xi), York Hall, 1877 (Chi Phi), Sachem Hall, 1893 (Phi Sigma Kappa), and Vernon Hall, 1908 (now Myth and Sword). The Yale Scientific Magazine was founded at Sheffield in 1894, the first student magazine devoted to the sciences.

Other buildings[edit]

In 1872–73, Sheffield Scientific School's first new building, North Sheffield Hall was built, designed by Josiah Cleaveland Cady, on what had been the gardens of the Town-Sheffield mansion. This was followed by Winchester Hall (1892) and Sheffield Chemical (1894-5, J. Cleaveland Cady). Of these, only the latter, Sheffield Chemical, is still standing, renovated and renamed Arthur K. Watson Hall. Becton Laboratory (designed by Marcel Breuer, 1970) now stands on the site of North Sheffield and Winchester Halls (demolished in 1967). Further expansion brought Kirtland Hall (1902, Kirtland Cutter), Hammond Laboratory (1904, W. Gedney Beatty), Leet Oliver Hall (1908, Charles C. Haight), Mason Laboratory (1911, Charles C. Haight) and Dunham Laboratory (1912, Henry Morse; addition 1958, Douglas Orr), all still standing except Hammond which was razed in 2009 to make way for two new residential colleges.[6]


The Vanderbilt-Sheffield Dormitories and Towers were built by Charles C. Haight from 1903 to 1906, and Haight's chapter house St. Anthony Hall was built in 1913. Byers Hall, designed by Hiss and Weekes and built in 1903, served as a center for social and religious life. These buildings are now incorporated into Silliman College, and St. Anthony Hall still owns its building, which completes the College and Wall Street corner of the Silliman College Quadrangle. In 2006-7, Silliman underwent a major renovation.


Also, in 1913, land in East Lyme was purchased for a field engineering camp (now the Yale Outdoor Education Center).

(Professor of Mineralogy) was Director of the Sheffield Scientific School from 1872 to 1898.

George Jarvis Brush

(Professor of Physiological Chemistry) was Director of the Sheffield Scientific School from 1898 to 1922.

Russell Henry Chittenden

(Sterling Professor of Geology) was Dean of the Sheffield Scientific School from 1922 to 1945.

Charles Hyde Warren

(Sterling Professor of Botany) was Director of the Sheffield Scientific School from 1945 to 1956.

Edmund Ware Sinnott

paleontologist, member of the governing board[8]

Charles Emerson Beecher

botanist, first chair of agriculture, as well as a graduate from the first class of the school[9]

William Henry Brewer

botanist[2]: 8 

Daniel Cady Eaton

geographer, helped plan and raise funds[10]

Daniel Coit Gilman

(1911–1968), physicist and author, president of Cooper Union

Richard F. Humphreys

American literary historian, professor of English and librarian at Sheff[11]

Thomas Lounsbury

(1814–1890), industrial mechanics; inventor of surveying and astronomical instruments[12]

Chester S. Lyman

(1870-1934), Mechanical engineer, Professor of Machine Design and Descriptive Geometry and author.

William Crosby Marshall

biochemist[13]

Lafayette Mendel

(1848–1925), civil engineering; author of "A Treatise on Hydraulics and on the Strength of Materials", 1877[14]

Mansfield Merriman

chemist, faculty member of Yale's department of education in applied science, which gave rise to Sheffield Scientific School.[15]

John Pitkin Norton

civil engineer, founding faculty member[16]

William Augustus Norton

chemist[17]

John Addison Porter

engineer chair of Mechanical Engineering from 1884–1909[18]

Charles Brinckerhoff Richards

chemist, founding faculty member[19]

Benjamin Silliman Jr.

(1828–1892), mechanical engineering; published the first cantilever bridge design; Member, National Academy of Science[20]

William Petit Trowbridge

zoologist and geologist[2]: 8 

Addison Emery Verrill

economist, third president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology[21]

Francis Amasa Walker

organized and taught in the department of modern languages; member of the governing board[22]

William Dwight Whitney

(1876–1953), politician and insurance executive; father of Joseph Alsop[23]

Joseph Wright Alsop IV

- major early donor

Austin Cornelius Dunham

Cunningham, W. Jack, Engineering at Yale, Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, New Haven, Connecticut, 1992.  1-878508-06-7

ISBN

Pinnell, Patrick L., Yale University: The Campus Guide, Princeton Architectural Press, New York, 1999.

Shimp, Andy, .

Sheffield Scientific School

Chittenden, Russell H., History of the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University, 1846–1922. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1928.

Furniss, Edgar S., The Graduate School of Yale: A Brief History. New Haven, Conn.: Purington Rollins, 1965.

Veysey, Laurence R., . Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965.

The Emergence of the American University

Warren, Charles H. The Sheffield Scientific School from 1847 to 1947. In The Centennial of the Sheffield Scientific School. Edited by George Alfred Baitsell. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1950.

Yale Engineering through the Centuries