Watch College Opens to 70 Students, 1936

From The American Horologist magazine, October 1936

Watch College Is Open to 70 Students

The Elgin Watchmakers college launched its seventeenth year yesterday with a record enrollment of 70 students.


Many of the students hail from distant places, including Canada and Hawaii.  Almost every state in the union is represented in the enrollment, from Maine to California, and Canada to the Gulf of Mexico.


The course consists of watchmaking, engraving, jewelry work, and clock work.


Every student who graduated at the close of the last school year has been placed in a position, including a large group who were trained for repair work at the plant of the Elgin National Watch Co.  At the present time a group or eight are being schooled for positions at the plant of the Western Clock Co. in LaSalle, Ill.


"Now that the depression is a thing of the past, the field for watchmaking is promising and students can be assured of positions after mastering the trade," said W. H. Samelius, director of the college.


In addition ot Mr. Samelius, members of the faculty include Jacob L. Hagelow, Reuben Davis, and George Gorham.  E. L. Schmidt is secretary of the college.


My Grandfather, Everett Sexton, began at the college with this group.  He is second from the left end of the first row in this photo, printed later in the Watch Word, the Elgin factory magazine.  The gentleman from Hawaii is at the left end of the second row from the front.


Before anyone asks, taking photos like this of students at the watch college was not a regular thing.  I have one other photo of this group, in a the shop area (the above is a lecture hall), and I have seen only one other photo from a later year of students visiting the Westclox factory.