University was initially founded as a law school in 1906 by Boston lawyer Gleason Archer Sr., who named it "Archer's Evening Law School", intending it for law students who worked during the day. The school was renamed "Suffolk School of Law" in 1907, after Archer moved it from his Roxbury, Massachusetts home into his law offices in downtown Boston.
A year later the first of Archer's students had passed the bar, leading to a boost in registration. The school's original goal was to "serve ambitious young men who are obliged to work for a living while studying law."
By 1930, Archer developed Suffolk into one of the largest law schools in the country, and decided to create "a great evening university" that working people could afford.
The school became a university in the 1930s when the "Suffolk College of Arts and Sciences" was founded in 1934 and the Sawyer Business School—then known as the "College of Business Administration"—in 1937. That same year, the three academic units were incorporated as Suffolk University.
During …
