Sheffield Scientific School

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Sheffield Scientific School was founded in 1854 as a school of Yale College for instruction in science and engineering. Originally named the Yale Scientific School, it was renamed in 1861 in honor of Joseph E. Sheffield. The school was incorporated in 1871. The Sheffield Scientific School helped establish the model for the transition of American 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.

Contents 1 History 2 Reorganization 3 Directors 4 Notable Faculty 5 Notable Alumni 6 Notes 7 Other Sources

[edit] History

After the development of the electric telegraph, an interest was fostered in teaching applied science at universities. The stage began to be set at Yale for the transition beginning in 1846, when professorships of agricultural chemistry (John Pitkin Norton) and practical chemistry (Benjamin Silliman Jr.) were established. The school of Applied Chemistry became part of a newly created Department of Philosophy and the Arts. Applied chemistry was followed in 1852 by a professorship of civil engineering, and these programs comprised the Yale Scientific School.

In 1853 and 1854, science and engineering courses were listed in the Yale College course catalog as offered by the Yale Scientific School...a school which did not yet exist! Plans for actually forming such a school, and plans for raising the funds needed to do that were formulated. In 1858, Joseph Earl Sheffield donated funds and real property for its creation: the old Yale Medical School building on the northeast corner of Grove and Prospect Streets was renovated and renamed (South) Sheffield Hall. (It was demolished in 1931 and is now the site of Sterling Tower, Sheffield Hall and Strathcona Hall (SSS).) Sheffield's building reinforced the division of Hillhouse Avenue into an upper, residential section, and a lower section devoted to education. In 1861, the school became the Sheffield Scientific School in recognition of his generosity. Sheffield was one of Yale's greatest benefactors and continued to support the school throughout his life, giving a total of about US$500,000. Yale also received US$591,000 from his will as well as his house, the Sheffield mansion, designed and originally owned by Ithiel Town (demolished in 1957).^[1]

The Academical Department of Yale (Ac) and Sheffield (Sheff) became rivals. Loomis Havemeyer 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.

A series of lectures, later known as the Sheffield Lectures was instituted by the school in 1866. Professor Othniel Charles Marsh of the school led four Yale scientific expeditions in search of fossils in 1870-3.

In 1872-3, 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). Of these, only the latter, Sheffield Chemical, is still standing, renovated and renamed Arthur K. Watson Hall. Becton Laboratory now stands on the site of North Sheffield and Winchester Halls (demolished in 1967). Further expansion brought Kirtland Hall (1902), Hammond Laboratory (1904), Leet Oliver Hall (1908), Mason Laboratory (1911) and Dunham Laboratory (1912), all still standing.

The Vanderbilt-Sheffield Dormitories and Towers were built by Charles Coolidge Haight from 1903 to 1906. 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.

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

Sheffield had its own student societies (final clubs) including the Colony Club , 1848 (now Berzelius), the Cloister, 1863 (now Book and Snake), St. Anthony Hall, 1868 (now a senior society), St. Elmo, 1889 (also a senior society), as well as Franklin Hall, 1865 (Theta Chi), York Hall, 1877 (Chi Phi), Sachem Hall, 1890 (Phi Sigma Kappa), and Vernon Hall, 1895 (Phi Gamma Delta). The Yale Scientific Magazine was founded at Sheffield in 1894, the first student magazine devoted to the sciences.

[edit] Reorganization

During the 1918-1919 reorganization of the educational structure of Yale University, the three years "select" course at Sheffield Scientific School was eliminated and a four year course of study for those studying "professional science" and "engineering" was approved, while graduate courses were transferred to the Graduate School, leaving only undergraduate courses taught at Sheffield Scientific School from 1919 to 1945, coexisting with Yale College's science programs.

The first degree of Bachelor of Science was awarded in 1922 to the graduating class of the Sheffield Scientific School.

In 1932, the School of Engineering was established and Sheffield Scientific School engineering classes were transferred to the new school.

In 1945, the Sheffield Scientific School resumed its original function of graduate level instruction in science. Undergraduate courses for the Bachelor of Science degree were transferred to Yale College, and undergraduate courses for a Bachelor of Science in industrial administration were transferred to the School of Engineering.

This transition occurred gradually, through the influence of "aggressive, powerful alumni" (including Edwin Oviatt, editor of the Yale Almuni Weekly) who "took control out of [President Hadley]'s hands and forced a radical reorganization of Yale"^[2]. In 1956, the Sheffield Scientific School was terminated as an active school. The Board of Trustees still exists to oversee the Sheffield Scientific School property and meet legal requirements. The schools faculty is defined as teachers of science to graduate students under the Division of Science. Engineering teaching and research is now conducted within the Faculty of Engineering.

[edit] Directors

• George Jarvis Brush was Director of the Sheffield Scientific School from 1872 to 1898.
• Russell Henry Chittenden was Director of the Sheffield Scientific School from 1898 to 1922.
• Charles Hyde Warren (Sterling Professor of Geology) was Dean of the Sheffield Scientific School from 1922 to 1945.
• Edmund Ware Sinnott was Director of the Sheffield Scientific School from 1945 to 1956.

[edit] Notable Faculty

• William Henry Brewer, botanist, first chair of agriculture
• Daniel Coit Gilman, geographer, helped plan and raise funds
• Thomas Lounsbury, American literary historian, Librarian at Sheff
• John Pitkin Norton, chemist, founding faculty member
• William Augustus Norton, civil engineer, founding faculty member
• John Addison Porter, chemist
• Benjamin Silliman, Jr., chemist, founding faculty member

[edit] Notable Alumni

• Clifford Whittingham Beers, mental health pioneer
• William Edward Boeing, aviator
• John Vernou Bouvier III, stckbroker and socialite
• Chester Bowles, American politician
• J. Twing Brooks, U. S. congressman
• Henry Boardman Conover, ornithologist
• Charles Benjamin Dudley, chemist
• Isadore Dyer, physician
• Lee De Forest, electronics inventor
• Francis I. du Pont, chemist
• Josiah Willard Gibbs, mathematical physicist and physical chemist
• T. Keith Glennan, first NASA administrator
• John Campbell Greenway, American mining, steel and railroad executive, soldier
• Harold L. Green, chain store founder
• Harry Frank Guggenheim, businessman, philanthropist
• Daniel Webster Hering, physicist
• John Hays Hammond, Jr., inventor, “father of radio control’’
• Treat Baldwin Johnson, chemist
• Othniel Charles Marsh, paleontologist
• Champion Mathewson, metallurgist
• Truman Handy Newberry, American businessman and politician
• Thomas Wharton Phillips, U. S. Congressman
• William Thompson Sedgwick, bacteriologist and public health scientist
• George B. Selden, lawyer and inventor
• Sidney Irving Smith, zoologist
• Zhan Tianyou, Chinese railroad engineer, "father of China's railroad"

[edit] Notes

1. ^ The Engineering Heritage at Yale, 1852-1957, Loomis Havemeyer, Samuel Dudley, 1959.
2. ^ Kelly, Brooks Mather, Yale: A History, Yale University Press, New Haven, Connecticut, 1974.

[edit] Other Sources

• Cunningham, W. Jack, Engineering at Yale, Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, New Haven, Connecticut, 1992. ISBN 1-878508-06-7
• 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., The Emergence of the American University. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965.
• 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.