Detroit Business Institute

The Detroit Business Institute (previously known as Detroit Business University and Goldsmith, Bryant & Stratton Business College) is an educational institute originally founded in Detroit, Michigan.

History

The original antecedent school, the Goldsmith Business College, was first formed by W. D. Cochrane and located at the corner of Larned and Woodward Avenue about four blocks north of the Detroit River. In 1857 Cochrane sold the school to Bryant and Stratton, who moved it to the Merrill Block where J. H. Goldsmith managed the institution as a branch of Bryant & Stratton College. When the Detroit Business University was formed Goldsmith was its first president. In 1874 the institution moved to the corner of Griswold Street and Lafayette Avenue.

Spencerian Business College was a successor of the Mayhew Business College that had operated in Albion, Michigan beginning in 1860.

The Detroit Business University was founded in 1887 by the merger of Spencerian Business College (founded in 1883) and Goldsmith Business College (founded in 1850). One of its early presidents was William F. Jewell, while Platt R. Spencer, who had headed the Spencerian Business College, was the head of the school's penmanship department.

Among the students who studied at institutions that became the Detroit Business University was Henry Ford.^[1]

The Gutchess Metropolitan Business College also later merged with the Detroit Business University.

In the 1930s the institution was still known as the Detroit Business University, but apparently by the 1960s it had changed its name to the Detroit Business Institute.

In the 1960s it began a collegiate institute in Dearborn, Michigan. In 1964 this became the Detroit College of Business and it later split off and became part of Davenport University.

By the early 21st century the Detroit Business Institute had two campuses, one in Southfield, Michigan and the other in Riverview, Michigan.

Notable alumni

• Albert Cobo, former mayor of Detroit
• Henry Ford, industrialist, philanthropist
• John Lesinski, Sr., politician
• Sidney Cecil Robinson, Canadian politician

External links and sources

• listing of former colleges in Michigan
• Paterson Educational Directory, 1916
• Detroit in History and Commerce (1891) p. 148
• Clarence M. Burton et. al, The City of Detroit, 1701-1922 Vol. 1, p. 768.
• Feb. 2008 Michigan Government Report mentioning the Detroit Business Institute
• Detroit Business Institute, Southfield website

References

1. ^ Steven Watts, The People's Tycoon: Henry Ford and the American Century (Random House, Inc., 2006), pg. 28 http://books.google.com/books?id=LIDyU91YMHAC&source=gbs_navlinks_s