Information Sheet

 

 

R         Springfield Business College (Springfield, Mo.).

765                  Booklets, 1908-1927.

                                    One folder.

 

 

 

These are booklets promoting the Springfield Business College, a commercial trade school lo­cated at Springfield in Greene County, Missouri.

 

A merger of the Springfield Normal Business College and the Queen City Business College formed the Springfield Business College.  It offered practical training in bookkeeping, shorthand, calculating machines, typewriting and typewriter repair, and telegraphy and “railroad bookkeep­ing.”

 

At the time of the printing of this 48-page illustrated booklet for 1908, the officers were President J. A. Taylor, Vice President Allen Moore, and Secretary Lena V. Taylor.  The College had recently moved into its own new building at the corner of Jefferson and Walnut streets in Springfield.  The three-story structure afforded classrooms on the first floor, private quarters for the Taylors and a dormitory for forty women on the second floor, and a dormitory for sixty men on the third floor.  Room and board were $3 per week.  According to the booklet, enrollment had grown from 288 in 1906, to 537 in 1907, to 710 in 1908.

 

In addition to information about the school, the booklet includes photographs of some of Springfield’s churches, hospitals, schools, and finest homes.  There are also many letters of en­dorsement from some of Springfield’s leading firms, including the Springfield Wagon Company, Springfield Grocer Company, and John T. Woodruff’s Springfield Trust Company.  There are also photographic portraits of President Taylor and the instructional staff, as well as views of the building’s exterior, classrooms, and dormitories.

 

By the time of the publication of the 32-page illustrated booklet for 1927, the College was well-estab­lished at 408 East Walnut Street in Springfield.  A private corporation, the College was owned by W. W. Thomas (President), Harvey H. Webb (Vice President), H. J. Venable (Secre­tary), Roy H. Mercer (Treasurer), and Laura Louise Chaplin.  The faculty included Dorothy Burke, Bertha Dun­can, Irene Hoblit, Clarence Arundale, W. G. Shover, Inez Haas, Eugene Bon­ham, H. D. Forgey, J. Edgar Thomas, and George P. Ryan.  The school no longer offered dormi­tory rooms, having ap­parently converted that space into classrooms.  It did sponsor men’s and women’s basketball teams and an orchestra.  The booklet is undated, but a center spread compos­ite photograph shows the faculty and students for “1926 & 1927.”

 

President W. W. Thomas was a former president of Morrisville College (1900-1906), head of the Department of Education at Springfield State Teachers College (1907-1912), and superin­tendent of the Springfield City Schools (1912-1924).  He assumed the presidency of Springfield Business College on 1 July 1924.

 

 

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