Career College Central

Subscribe at www.careercollegecentral.com 8 Gaining momentum: 1830s In 1832, another Benjamin Franklin — Benjamin Franklin Foster — founded Foster's Commercial School of Boston. At that time, commercial courses had been available for a number of years, but most historians denote Foster's school as the first established in the United States that specialized in training for commerce. Foster's school opened just as the Industrial Revolution began creating a larger demand for trained clerical workers. e educational program he developed emphasized the specific skills employers wanted. at approach allowed the school to meet industry's demands faster and more efficiently than the apprenticeship system. Foster's school saved time and labor, allowing many students to acquire training and enter the world of commerce and industry faster than they could before. Aer the opening of Foster's school, many others followed suit between 1825 and the Civil War. During this era, there was an expansion of foreign and internal commerce, the governmental acquisition of vast territories, the exploration and settlement of the West, the rise of steamboats and railroads, and the widespread use of coal and iron. All of these contributed to the growth of industry. With such substantial change afoot in our nation, many more people were needed to carry on the detailed work of business offices. Entrepreneurial educators of the time recognized the immediate and unprecedented demand for office workers. One of these pioneer business schools still exists in the city where it was founded. Established in 1841 by Peter Duff, Duff 's Mercantile College is still in operation in Pittsburgh. Although its ownership and name in serviCe to ameriCa Berkeley College, graduating class of 1934 in East Orange, NJ. have changed several times, Duff 's Business Institute (now called Everest Institute), chartered by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is recognized as the oldest private career school in continual operation in the United States. Because it was a great steel-producing city throughout the 19th century, Pittsburgh had room for more than one business school. Platt Rogers Spencer founded another important business school in that city in 1852. It was Spencer who gave us the slanted penmanship known as Spencerian Script. His skill with a quill pen and his qualities as a public speaker, writer and educator made him a revered man. Eventually, Spencer and all of his children became associated with private business schools. His Pittsburgh school, the Spencerian Commercial Academy, was very successful and was later sold to Duff. By the mid-1850s, 15 to 20 private career schools were teaching business-related subjects in the states. Most of these were located in the major trading centers along the Atlantic coast, such as New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Charleston. With the invention of the steamboat, western cities, such as St. Louis and New Orleans, became important trading centers, and schools were established in those cities as well. Career colleges continued this growth to the end of the century, and the reasons for that expansion were many. e aforementioned growth of industry is the primary reason. Women also entered business offices, which brought the need

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