History
The school was founded by Reverend William S. Holland, who was educated at Virginia Union University. Deeply interested in education for black youth, Holland founded the Watchman Industrial School at 140 Codding Street, in Providence in 1908. He hoped to duplicate the success of the educational program of Booker T. Washington, as operating at the Hampton Institute and the Tuskeegee Institute, historically black colleges. He trained black youths in vocational trades in addition to academic subjects, hence the name "industrial school," which was a popular model at the time for lower-class youths. Educators believed that young people needed to be taught skills for the workplace. Holland often took custody of young persons in trouble with the authorities, in lieu of seeing them enter Rhode Island's reform school or prison systems.
The Watchman Industrial School was incorporated in Rhode Island by 1910. In 1917, the Watchman School was described in the report of the Phelps-Stokes Fund as "a small elementary school of very doubtful management. The industrial work is negligible." The Fund was managing a study of black education and surveyed private as well as public schools.
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