Booker T. Washington Business College Catalogue 1949-1952
- SIGNED
- Birmingham, Alabama: [The College], 1948
Birmingham, Alabama: [The College], 1948. Very good. 11” x 8½”. Stapled illustrated thin card wrappers. Pp. [28]. Very good: wrappers lightly scuffed and worn; a touch of light creasing; evenly toned.
This is an unrecorded, illustrated catalog for a Black business college founded by an immensely successful African American businessman and his wife (and run by a majority of women), the Booker T. Washington Business College of Birmingham, Alabama (BTWBC).
Arthur George Gaston completed the tenth grade, then left school to sell the Black-owned Birmingham Reporter newspaper and work as a hotel bellman. He served in the army during World War I, saving his military pay to invest in real estate when he returned to Birmingham. By 1923 he had founded his first business, the Booker T. Washington Burial Society, and by 1932 an insurance company of the same name. When he and his wife Minnie couldn't find Black accountants, clerks and bookkeepers, they founded BTWBC in 1939 to train their own. Minnie also helped found the Birmingham chapter of the National Council of Negro Women and served on the board of Alpha Kappa Alpha. By the time A.G. Gaston died in 1996, his enterprises also included a bank, motel, two radio stations, two cemeteries, a construction company and multiple real estate holdings. He founded the city's Boys' Club and home for senior citizens, and reportedly bailed Martin Luther King Jr. out of jail in 1963. Black Enterprise magazine named him “Entrepreneur of the Century” in 1992.
This book was printed by a noted Black company in Birmingham, Forniss Printers. It has 28 photographic images, showing A.G. Gaston, President, Minnie as Director, and some of the 26 faculty, 15 of whom were women. There are great shots of Black students operating the “$20,000 worth of machinery,” getting “real life experience in the businesses around the college” and enjoying extracurriculars like choir and the basketball team. We even see the “Crowning of the king and queen by president Gaston in a popularity contest between the day and night students.” The book provides the college calendar for the upcoming four years, detailed descriptions of courses in typing, business math and law, “Consumer Problems,” “Applied Psychology,” accounting, sales and more. It explains the grading system, requirements for graduation, rules of “Discipline” and assistance from the “Placement Bureau.”
A striking college catalog for an under-known Black training school. No holdings were found in OCLC.
This is an unrecorded, illustrated catalog for a Black business college founded by an immensely successful African American businessman and his wife (and run by a majority of women), the Booker T. Washington Business College of Birmingham, Alabama (BTWBC).
Arthur George Gaston completed the tenth grade, then left school to sell the Black-owned Birmingham Reporter newspaper and work as a hotel bellman. He served in the army during World War I, saving his military pay to invest in real estate when he returned to Birmingham. By 1923 he had founded his first business, the Booker T. Washington Burial Society, and by 1932 an insurance company of the same name. When he and his wife Minnie couldn't find Black accountants, clerks and bookkeepers, they founded BTWBC in 1939 to train their own. Minnie also helped found the Birmingham chapter of the National Council of Negro Women and served on the board of Alpha Kappa Alpha. By the time A.G. Gaston died in 1996, his enterprises also included a bank, motel, two radio stations, two cemeteries, a construction company and multiple real estate holdings. He founded the city's Boys' Club and home for senior citizens, and reportedly bailed Martin Luther King Jr. out of jail in 1963. Black Enterprise magazine named him “Entrepreneur of the Century” in 1992.
This book was printed by a noted Black company in Birmingham, Forniss Printers. It has 28 photographic images, showing A.G. Gaston, President, Minnie as Director, and some of the 26 faculty, 15 of whom were women. There are great shots of Black students operating the “$20,000 worth of machinery,” getting “real life experience in the businesses around the college” and enjoying extracurriculars like choir and the basketball team. We even see the “Crowning of the king and queen by president Gaston in a popularity contest between the day and night students.” The book provides the college calendar for the upcoming four years, detailed descriptions of courses in typing, business math and law, “Consumer Problems,” “Applied Psychology,” accounting, sales and more. It explains the grading system, requirements for graduation, rules of “Discipline” and assistance from the “Placement Bureau.”
A striking college catalog for an under-known Black training school. No holdings were found in OCLC.