page_title: Johnson & Wales University
section_title: 1914–1947
hierarchical_section_title: Johnson & Wales University / History / 1914–1947
caption_attribution_description: English: Gertrude I. Johnson and Mary T. Wales, co-founders of Johnson &amp; Wales University
context_page_description: Johnson & Wales University is a private university with its main campus in Providence, Rhode Island. Founded as a business school in 1914 by Gertrude I. Johnson and Mary T. Wales, JWU currently has 12,930 graduate, undergraduate, and online students across its campuses. The university is accredited by the New England Commission of Higher Education.
context_section_description: Johnson & Wales Business School was founded in September 1914 in Providence, Rhode Island. Founders Gertrude I. Johnson and Mary T. Wales met as students at Pennsylvania State Normal School in Millersville, Pennsylvania. Years later, both were teaching at Bryant and Stratton business school in Providence (now Bryant University) when they decided to team up and open a business school. The school opened with one student and one typewriter on Hope Street in Providence. The school soon moved to a larger site on Olney Street, and later moved downtown to 36 Exchange Street to better serve returning soldiers after World War I. The curriculum in the early part of the 20th Century included bookkeeping, typing, shorthand, English, and Mathematics. The school admitted both men and women.
caption: Gertrude I. Johnson and Mary T. Wales
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