Abstract

"The Business of American Business Education: Nineteenth-Century American Commercial Colleges"

Caitlin Rosenthal, University of California, Berkeley (crosenthal@berkeley.edu)

Before the founding of elite American Business Schools near the turn of the twentieth century (Wharton 1881, Haas 1898, Tuck 1900, HBS 1908), small private commercial colleges dominated the landscape for business education. The first American schools to be fully devoted to commercial education were founded in the 1810s and 1820s, and by the 1830s and 1840s, commercial colleges were opening in every region of the country. Founders of early schools promoted systematic classroom education, touting the development of practical skills at moderate prices.
By the 1850s, commercial education itself was becoming big business. In 1853, H.B. Bryant and H.D. Stratton founded their first college in Cleveland, Ohio. Over the next decade, they purportedly opened more than 50 schools under the Bryant and Stratton brand. Ultimately, they sought to open a branch of the college in every city in the United States with more than 10,000 people, appointing managers for each new school and offering them a share of local profits. Though Bryant and Stratton was the largest of these systems (and indeed still offers instruction on 16 campuses today), it was only one of many schools that by the 1880s were educating almost 50,000 students per year.
This paper uses data collected by the US Commissioner of Education in the late 19th century to describe the scale and geography these colleges. Case studies of several institutions also raise questions about the ways they have shaped the development of business education and practice.