Make Business Your Career! Booker T. Washington Business College.
Birmingham, Alabama: c. 1950s. Folded direct mail advertisement measuring 21 x 5 ½ inches, folded into six panels. Fine condition. Item #List3609
A promotional mailer for the Booker T. Washington Business College, founded by A.G. Watson in Birmingham in 1939 in response to a shortage of typists and receptionists in his insurance and funeral home businesses, and open until 1988. Arthur George Gaston (1892–1996) was an Alabama businessman and civic leader who built one of the largest African American–owned business enterprises in the United States during the era of segregation. Beginning with the Booker T. Washington Burial Society, he expanded into insurance, funeral services, banking, construction, broadcasting, and hospitality, creating employment and training opportunities within Birmingham’s Black business community. Gaston later established Citizens Federal Savings and Loan Association, one of the few Black-owned financial institutions in the region, and developed the A.G. Gaston Motel, which served as a key meeting site for civil rights leaders during the Birmingham Campaign of 1963. This advertisement appears to be from the 1950s, with pictures of students around an IBM accounting machine (late 1940s production), and pictures of the Gastons in their respective offices. The college offered courses in business, civil service, accounting, and secretarial training, according to the mailer. A nice survival from an important institution.
Price: $200.00