Pierson College

Pierson College opened in 1933 and is one of the original eight residential colleges funded by Edward Harkness and designed by James Gamble Rogers.  Named for Abraham Pierson—the first rector of Yale, then still the Collegiate School—Pierson was designed in a Georgian Revival style inspired in part by Independence Hall, hinting at the founding role that Pierson had also played in a distinctly American chapter.  In the years after Pierson’s founding, the college would itself prove worthy of its contributions “For Country“—graduating a disproportionate number of Yalies who entered the nation’s intelligence services during World War II.  Yale’s largest residential college by number of students, the college’s open quadrangle amidst white-trimmed windows and classical detailing—a marked contrast to the Gothic architecture of most of the other early residential colleges—fosters an especially lively community that is itself a living tribute to how New England communities were even before the nation’s founding.