Hampton Institute may have established one of the first school-based enterprises when they founded Huntington Industrial Works.

The story of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School begins with Richard Henry Pratt as its founder.

Attention grew in interest toward artistic design after Charles Leland introduced arts and crafts instruction in Philadelphia. This allowed for a wider variety of teaching techniques in manual training instruction. Booker T. Washington founded a premier African-American private college, Tuskegee Institute, in Tuskegee, Alabama. Instruction included academic, occupational, and instruction on teaching.