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Pennsylvania Trails History and Genealogy

Dorney, Oliver C.

OLIVER C. DORNEY, founder and president of the American Commercial School, is the son of Solomon and Elmina (Faust) Dorney, and was born in South Whitehall Township, Lehigh County, Pa., March 18, 1862. He was educated in the district schools, the Allentown Business College, in which after graduation he was retained as instructor and manager, and Kibbe’s Writing Parlors and Gallery of Pen Art, Utica, N. Y. In 1899 he established the American Commercial School in Allentown, which institution he has made to rank among the completest and best of its kind in the United States. In the early eighties he managed his father’s varied business interests, including the famous Dorney Park. When the park was sold to the Allentown and Reading Traction Company, he became for a time chief accountant of the company. In 1895 he erected the Dorney building, the first apartment house in the city, and organized the O. C. Dorney Company. In 1900 he was chartered a public accountant. In 1905 he erected twenty modern suburban dwellings. Besides being a prominent educator and an enterprising man of affairs, Mr. Dorney is of an inventive and mechanical turn of mind. He is a member of the following organizations: National Commercial Teachers’ Federation; Private Commercial School Managers’ Association; Eastern Commercial Teachers’ Association; National Association of Accountants and Bookkeepers; Bookkeepers’ Literary Club; National League of Business Educators; National Association of Accredited Commercial Schools; Allentown Chamber of Commerce; Allentown Rotary Club, of which he is president; he is also a thirty-second degree Mason, and a Shriner. In 1883 Mr. Dorney married Jennie Clapp Reynolds Wood, of Providence, R. I., who has contributed much to her husband’s success in his various undertakings.