Eastman Business College

The college was founded in 1859 by Harvey G. Eastman, and was for a time one of the largest commercial schools in the United States. Eastman college was located in Poughkeepsie NY.

Rather than merely being a theoretical school, students gained practical experience in the business arts by actually performing the tasks that would be expected of them in their working careers, a novel approach at the time.

The Reverend William Lloyd taught at Eastman College in the late 1800s.

In 1897, Eastman Business College, Poughkeepsie, NY, had a Business Department, which offered hands-on practice in a mock bank and a mock railway and express office, and also taught book-keeping; a School of Shorthand; which trained students in shorthand, typing, duplicating, and filing; a School of Penmanship, which prepared students to teach writing and pen art; and a School of Telegraphy, which trained students as telegraph operators.

The 1898 catalog of the Eastman Business College and its affiliated school, the New York Business Institute, stated, "These schools do not receive students of the Negro Race".

In 1905 S. V. Daniels, a 17-year-old from St. Thomas, Virgin Islands withdrew from the main college following the petition of 160 southern students alleging that he was partially of African descent, and transferred to the Harlem branch.

The college closed on June 10, 1931.

• "Daniels Leaves College", Washington Post, April 18, 1905
• A Brief History of Eastman Business College, 1875

• Office Museum