Myron C. Fisher

Edmund H. Fisher

Fisher College--now located in Boston's Back Bay--was originally opened in what was predominantly the working-class city of Somerville, and had its beginnings with educational entrepreneurs who believed the immigrants of that city in the early 1900s needed a way out of their unskilled employment. In 1897, brothers Myron C. Fisher and Edmund H. Fisher moved from Shenandoah, Iowa, to Somerville, Massachusetts. They had studied education in a midwestern normal school but, unlike many others of their day, sought new opportunities in the east. While teaching at Burdett College in Boston, the brothers saw a need to start a different kind of school. And so in 1903, they opened the doors of Winter Hill Business College. The brothers went door-to-door selling courses; the curriculum was individualized and students could study whatever they needed to land the job they were seeking.

Today, the College provides courses leading to the baccalaureate degree, associate's degrees and certificates to traditional-age college students from around the world as well as to continuing education students. Although the College no longer sells courses door-to-door, a Fisher College degree is available to many students via our online education, and students still receive individualized attention in the Fisher College classroom. *

* Excerpted from the book Massachusetts from Colony to Commonwealth.