Chicago Manual Training School

The Chicago Manual Training School was conceived by members of the Chicago Commercial Club in 1882. It opened two years later at the corner of Michigan and Roosevelt Avenues.

The Chicago Manual Training School was the only independent institution of its kind when it opened. Along with Washington University’s Manual Training School in St. Louis, it was the most influential in the country. Influenced by educational movements in late 1870s and 1880s America, the school’s founders sought to provide a comprehensive three-year education that gave equal attention to "book work" and "shop work." Students were given a secondary education in mathematics, science, and literature, as well as training in drawing, carpentry, and mechanics. Founding director H.H. Belfield declared the industrial age an "age of brains" in which engineering advancement was equally the product of intellectual innovation and technical skill. Believing that "a republic should have no proletariat," Belfield and the other trustees rejected both traditional secondary school instruction and the apprenticeship model for trades.

Within ten years the Chicago Manual Training School had more than tripled its admissions, and added business and college preparatory courses to its program. Between 1896 and1897 the school’s strained finances led the Chicago Commercial Club to transfer its trusteeship to the University of Chicago, though there was little initial change in curriculum. South Side Academy, a college prep school founded in 1892, similarly came under University administration in 1901; in 1903 the two merged to become University High School. This new institution formed the secondary school for the University’s Laboratory Schools, then under the direction of John Dewey.

From the guide to the Chicago Manual Training School. Records, 1882-1913, (Special Collections Research Center University of Chicago Library 1100 East 57th Street Chicago, Illinois 60637 U.S.A.)