The Success of Commercial Education

Commercial education was the vocational success story of high schools in the Progressive Era. Students, parents, administrators, and eventually vocational educators supported commercial education and in contrast to home economics and trade education; course and program enrollments grew impressively between 1900 and 1930. The number of public high school students enrolled in business courses rose from 519,000 in 1900 to 4,497,000 in 1934 and the percentage enrolled jumped from 21.7 per cent in 1900 to 57.7 per cent in 1934. ¹ These figures indicated the presence of an expanding army of office workers that was increasingly dominated by women. Young women who aspired to office work flocked to commercial courses in public high schools to learn typing, stenography, and bookkeeping, and the population of commercial education courses was steadily feminized. In 1914 56 per cent of students in commercial courses were young women, and by 1924 the percentage had risen to 67. ² High schools accommodated these students by hiring more teachers, adding more classes, both day and evening, and in some cases building high schools to house commercial education. ³ Commercial education in high schools was thus a response to the growth and increasing feminization of office work.