Educational Programs – American National Business Hall of Fame, ANBHF

During the first two and one-half decades of its existence the American National Business Hall of Fame maintained a very active program of taking the success stories of hall of fame laureates into high school and college classrooms. By September of 1986 over 100,000 students had attended hall of fame classroom presentations. At the university level the presentations were systematically delivered every semester at the major public universities in Illinois. In addition, every year the ANBHF would sponsor a national tour taking the presentations to the home universities of the members of the ANBHF board of state representatives. The tours visited universities in New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri, Minnesota, Colorado, Oregon, Washington, California, Texas, Missouri, Louisiana, and Alabama. At the high school level trained graduate students and faculty members operating out of Southern Illinois University and Western Illinois University travelled to selected high schools to make hall of fame presentations.

The university level presentations typically presented the stories of more than one laureate in the context of a topic taught in most business degree programs. The most popular presentations used laureate stories to address the topics of BUSINESS ETHICS, HISTORY OF RETAILING, HISTORY OF ADVERTISING, PERSONAL SELLING AND BUSINESS STRATEGY. The high school presentations were typically made in high school history or business classes. The most popular such presentation was named OWNING YOUR OWN BUSINESS-AN AMERICAN DREAM. That presentation used laureate stories to illustrate basic principles of entrepreneurship.

In 2001 the board of directors of the ANBHF decided to move the educational program to the new ANBHF web site.