Montgomery College

Bliss School of Electricity The Bliss School of Electricity was a private, for-profit institution which claimed to be the oldest school teaching electricity in the world. [ 1 ] Established in 1893 and named after its founder Louis D. Bliss, its first class was held on October 15, 1893, in a single room on the third floor of the Warder Building at Ninth and F streets NW in Washington, D.C. [ 2 ] [ 3 ] It started as a night class with 26 students, including Thomas E. Robertson, who would later go on to be the United States Commissioner of Patents. The capital investment in the school was $400, representing an advance payment of $20 each from 20 men. During the eight-month session of 1894–1895, about 75 men enrolled and paid $50 of tuition each. [ 4 ] [ 5 ] In 1895, Charles Francis Jenkins , of motion picture and television fame, enrolled as a student. [ 6 ] The school later moved to 219 G Street NW in Washington, D.C. [ 7 ] W. B. Connelly, a 1904 graduate of Bliss, worked for the General Electric Company at Schenectady, N.Y., where he led the inspection of some two miles of switchboards for the Panama Canal . Before going to General Electric, Connelly taught at Bliss; his student Skipwith B. Cole would later become dean of the school's faculty.

In July 1908, the Bliss Electrical School bought the four-story North Takoma Hotel and its 4.5 acres of land from Thomas H. Pickford. [ 8 ] Located on Takoma Avenue between New York and Chicago avenues, the hotel had originally been built by Benjamin F. Gilbert in 1892. [ 9 ] Bliss intended to remodel the four-story hotel building into space for classes. [ 8 ] North Takoma Hotel, which was bought by Bliss School of Electricity and used for classes and a dormitory until it burned down in 1908

Eight weeks after classes were first held in the new building, the school building burned to the ground around 2:45 a.m. on November 6, 1908. [ 10 ] [ 11 ] The fire forced almost 200 students in the second floor dormitory to escape the building. [ 11 ] As there were no fire escapes, the students climbed out of windows using ropes intended for that purpose. [ 12 ] The fire was caused by gas leak in the first-floor kitchen. [ 12 ] At the time, Takoma Park did not have a fire station; the closest one was located nearly two miles away in Brightwood . [ 13 ] Afterwards, many Takoma Park residents allowed the students to stay in their homes, many of whom had come from elsewhere in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Brazil, and Japan. [ 11 ] [ 14 ] [ 15 ] The City of Takoma allowed the Bliss School to use Takoma Hall for classes temporarily, as did Takoma Park Presbyterian Church . [ 14 ] [ 16 ] A new two-story building of brick and reinforced concrete was built at the same site, opening for classes in September 1909. [ 17 ] [ 18 ] A bungalow across the street was acquired to be used as a dining room. [ 18 ] The new Bliss School building, built in 1909 after the previous school building had burned down On June 3, 1914, Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan addressed the school's graduating class in the auditorium of the Calvary Baptist Church . [ 19 ] Bryan said, "No one can set a limit on the growth of the electrical profession. There are greater opportunities for greater discoveries than in any other department of activity. Before you lies a field in which any one of you may be a pioneer." [ 19 ]

In 1917, the United States entered World War I . By special permission granted by the War Department , the Bliss Electrical School organized a searchlight company of engineers consisting of 57 men from the 1917 class, headed by Lt. Clyde K. Krisee of the faculty, and under Major John C. Gotwals of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers . This company went overseas with the First Division of the American Expeditionary Forces . These men were used for instruction purposes in a searchlight school in Paris. All returned safely to the United States after the war except one, who was killed in an automobile accident in Paris. The captured German searchlight, which adorns the campus, was presented to the Bliss School of Electricity by the War Department as a tribute to the work of the Bliss Searchlight Company of Engineers. Drafted men from Washington, D.C., install wires for electric lights and motors in the Bliss wiring laboratory in 1918. The school provided an intensive course of training for Army electricians. At the request of the War Department in 1918, Bliss School prepared an intensive training course in the fundamentals of electricity for drafted men entering the Army. This course was adopted by the War Department, and was the first course used in all the colleges throughout the country, giving instructions along this line to army personnel in the Student Army Training Corps. The school contracted with the War Department to house, feed, and instruct selected groups of soldiers for this course. Beginning June 15, 1918, the school trained 700 soldiers in three detachments. The contract called for training these men at cost. This cost was determined by the auditors in the War Department at $2.00 for the first detachment, at $1.80 for the second detachment, and $1.62 for the third detachment per man per day for housing, feeding, instruction, and supplies.