Bliss Business College
Lewiston, Maine
1897-1972
E-Travel
I have acquired the 1942 Go-Getter yearbook. Bliss Business College is profiled in the 1946 Educational Institutions of New England, edited by Donald Dewart. The Lewiston Daily Sun and Evening Journal covered many school activities. The Evening Journal did a fifty-year history of the school in 1948, written by George F. Call. The school seal is from the Go-Getter.
History
Bliss Business College was founded by brothers F.L., C.A., and F.H. Bliss as one of a chain of business colleges created to sell an instructional system and textbooks for the teaching of business, developed by the Bliss Publishing Company of Saginaw, Michigan. Classes opened in Lewiston on January 31, 1898. Within two weeks enrollment had reached 40 students. The 1942 yearbook shows a wartime enrollment of 95; Dewart shows 125 taught by a faculty of five. Through the years school enrollment was “approximately 100 students,” according to the 1972 Daily Sun.
Seventeen-year-old Olney D. Bliss became president of the college three months after its opening, and continued until his death in 1944, being succeeded as president by his wife Katherine.
The Daily Sun in 1898 lists the courses of study as follows: Bookkeeping, Business and Banking, Commercial Arithmetic, Practical Penmanship, Commercial Law, Business Letter Writing, Rapid Calculations, Office Practice, and Shorthand/Typewriting. Dewart shows that there was a normal program for the training of business teachers.
In 1909 Bliss Business College received a state charter. In 1958 Bliss made curriculum changes, requiring 21 hours of general education courses. This led to a name change to Bliss College. For the first time the school was empowered to award the A.A. degree in science.
Even with a small student body, Bliss offered a robust social life for its students. The Go-Getter shows two social sororities with 39 members between them. For male students there was one social fraternity and an independent Boys Club. These groups were the basis of numerous parties, dances, entertainments, and outings. In addition, the school sponsored Halloween and Christmas parties.
On September 1,1972 the Daily Sun reported that Bliss College had filed for bankruptcy and would close, citing “financial reasons and lack of local support” as reasons.
Bricks and Mortar
Bliss opened classes in “two small front rooms” on the second floor of the Ellard Block in downtown Lewiston. Within a year these rooms proved too small for the increased enrollment, so Bliss added the rest of the second floor. This space also proved too small, so the college moved to the Sands Block at 126 Lisbon Street. At any Bliss College location, the central feature was the great hall where students did banking and other actual business transactions. The Daily Sun called this space at the Sands Block “the most commodious and elegantly appointed school room of the kind this side of Boston.” Measured 60 X 70 feet, it was finished in cherry and deep salmon. The 1942 yearbook shows the school address as 160 Lisbon Avenue in the McGillicuddy Block, also known as the Bliss College Block.
In 1966, when the school achieved junior college status, increased enrollment caused a move from Lisbon Street out to the corner of Pine and Webster streets, where the campus included two classroom buildings plus a girls’ dormitory.
All main buildings associated with the college still stand.
(Left) Google image of the Ellard Block, the original home of Bliss Business College.
Sports
School Colors: Purple and Gold
Team name: Penmen
In trying to establish a sports program, Bliss College faced the usual problems of a small school with short-term programs. Being neither a high school nor a college and having a high yearly turnover of students made scheduling and team building difficult.
Bliss began playing baseball in spring of 1900, playing a few high school and independent sides. In 1905 Bliss fielded a football team, losing to Bath High School 44-0 and to South Paris High School 39-0. Newspapers show a few games through 1908.
But also, in 1905 Bliss began girls’ basketball. The 1941-42 team compiled a 10-2 record with the only defeats coming from Bath Iron Works and Leavitt Institute. The post-World War II men’s basketball teams were successful in the Twin Cities Amateur Basketball League. After 1960, newspapers show only a bowling team.
1941-42 girls' basketball team. Image from the Go-Getter.
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