Jesse Buttrick Davis and “His Boys”: A History of the Early Grand Rapids Junior Chamber of Commerce

Copyright 2012 by Barbara Nan Schichtel

The Grand Rapids Junior Chamber of Commerce, commonly known today as the Jaycees, was founded in 1909 - years ahead of the 1920 founding of today’s United States Junior Chamber of Commerce. Chartered as a US affiliate in 1929, the Grand Rapids Jaycees high-profile and lesser-known projects have long impacted citizens. Local Jaycees built voter support for the first Kent County Airport and the Civic Auditorium. They purchased the All- American Girls Baseball League franchise we know as the Grand Rapids Chicks, did the grunt work to establish Junior Achievement in West Michigan, ran successful Public Schools millage campaigns, and helped found the West Michigan Environmental Action Council. For many years, Jaycees ran a professional golf tournament raising millions for charity. They built the MacKay Jaycees Family Park at 28 th Street and Kalamazoo Avenue. Today, Jaycees continue to provide leadership training through community service – 101 years after their founding. workforce to support the human resource needs of all industries, but particularly those of the furniture, foundry, and printing industries.

Mr. Davis “Your Vocation is - etc.” student drawing from GR High School annual.

The School Board directed Davis to “clean up” the social problems and get rid of the “secret societies.” He was told to raise the academic standards in the school’s classically-modeled liberal education program which served primarily collegebound students. Finally, the influential Grand Rapids Furniture Manufacturers Employers Association passed a resolution asking the School Board to address the challenges facing the less-advantaged, “terminal,” non-college-bound students. The city’s economy depended upon a trained

Davis reached those goals. He established new school clubs that gave students options to substitute productive academically-related activities in music, literature, debate, leadership, politics, and various occupational interests for the illegal, uncouth and often immoral ones that were so distressing citizenry. With more time spent in positive school activities, academic standards rose. Davis re-wrote the 7-12 th grade English curriculum at GRH emphasizing reading, research, and writing activities with a vocational and moral focus – widely known as the Grand Rapids Plan which put Grand Rapids Public Schools on the map. Perhaps the most long lasting of Davis’ positive substitutions was the creation of the Grand Rapids Junior Board of Trade.

The focus shifts west down the hill from the central High School at Ransom and Lyon Streets to the downtown offices of the Grand Rapids Board of Trade at 97-99 Pearl Street. Secretary Walter K. Cotton, upon hearing news of the success of a boys junior commercial group sponsored by the Chicago Association of Commerce and Industry the previous year, urged the local Board of Trade at the October 12, 1909 meeting to establish their own “junior” group of sons of members. The work of a “Juniors” group was assigned to a committee chaired by Herbert E. Sargent, curator of the Kent Scientific Museum. The committee included: Roy S. Barnhart, Nelson Matter and president of the Furniture Guild; J.H. Brockmeier, Brockmeier Piano; C.C. Cargill, Cargill Engraving; Louis A. Cornelius, Wolverine Brass Works; foundry owner H.J. Hartman; and Carroll H. Perkins, Mutual Benefit Life. The minutes referred to this as “Proposed Visits to Factories by Sons of Members.”

During the November 3, 1909 Board of Trade meeting, W.C. Sheppard, Mutual Home & Savings Association, Board of Trade and Board of Education member, stated his belief that the movement would “start better educational facilities in Grand Rapids” and improve manual training. Dr. Joseph Griswold declared his belief that when the boys became interested in the city’s industries, their interest in “frats” might wane. Board of Trade Secretary Clarence Cotton called attention to the “value of organizational lessons which would be learned by the boys if the proposed plans be carried out, and declared that the early education of boys in committees and other public work was very important.” Cotton and some of the members without sons were interested in offering this opportunity to boys and girls in the Grand Rapids Public Schools, but during the years that the Jaycees were most closely affiliated with the Board of Trade, this progressive idea did not flourish.

The “Juniors” officially started meeting soon after Thanksgiving 1909, and, with Board of Trade guidance, held a mass meeting of sons of members to arrange plans for that school year. Most of the boys attended the central High School, and because of that, Jesse Davis’ name soon

1910 Badge asking for voter support of a $200,000 Parks and Playground bond vote. Badges were worn by over 900 school children at the behest of the Junior Board of Trade. The bond vote passed!

Courtesy of Grand Rapids Public Library

appeared in the minutes. Officially Davis was on a subcommittee led by Roy Barnhart. By April 1910, the boys were meeting every other Saturday morning and had participated in 13 trade and industrial tours. On average, 28 boys participated in each excursion. Meetings usually included a speech by a Board of Trade member, a tour of his business, followed by a question-and-answer session. During that first year, 85 boys took part and visits included Hartman’s Foundry and Oliver Machinery among others.

By June 1910, a standing committee of the Board of Trade was created to oversee the Junior Board. Jesse Davis attended most meetings as a Board of Trade representative and because of his principalship. The boys adopted a Constitution and Bylaws later approved by the parent organization. Chairman Plumb declared that Secretary Cotton had made a “great hit” when he suggested the organization of a Junior Board of Trade. The boys were welcome to attend Board of Trade meetings, and occasionally were invited to make brief remarks as did Junior Board of Trade President Milton Adams and Secretary Robert Davis Jr. at the Nov. 9, 1910 meeting.

During their earliest years, the Junior Board of Trade helped win votes to build city parks. Jesse Davis’s “boys” provided the business community with manpower that built Grand Rapids’ reputation as a “good convention town.” Renamed Junior Association of Commerce (JACs) in 1912, the JACs gave ambitious young men opportunities to learn about a wide range of new vocational opportunities available in a rapidly changing society. News of these activities helped promote and establish Junior Associations of Commerce worldwide when they were detailed in books, popular magazine, newspaper articles, in scholarly journals, and by educational, commercial, and vocational conference speakers. Interest was evoked nationally from senior chambers of commerce, boards of trade, newspaper editors, civic boosters, educators, early social workers, ministers, and politicians who wanted to create similar organizations in their own hometowns. The ripple effect of activities taken on by Jesse Davis’s protégés had far-reaching consequences in spurring the development of early junior chambers of commerce long before the United States Junior Chamber of Commerce existed.

The historical study of Jesse B. Davis and the Grand Rapids Jaycees is ongoing, Schichtel hopes to elicit input about the personal and professional lives of individual early Jaycees and will share a list of names of “Jesse’s Boys” with GRHS attendees.

“Jesse Buttrick Davis and “His Boys”: A History of the Early Grand Rapids Junior Chamber of Commerce”, February 9, 2012, 7:00 p.m. co-sponsored by the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum by Barbara Nan Schichtel, Grand Rapids Historical Society, Board of Trustees.