Dr. Herman Adolf Devry

The Life & Career of Herman DeVry

Dr. Herman Adolf DeVry was a pioneer aviator but is well-known as the founder of DeVry University. Herman A. DeVry, D.S. was an engineer, manufacturer and inventor of the motion picture projector. Herman A. DeVry was born in Mecklenburg, Schwerin, Germany on November 26, 1876. Herman A. DeVy at the age of nine entered the U.S. with his parents, Wilhelm H. DeVry and Maria Kunigunde.

According to the National Encyclopedia of American Biography, Herman A. DeVry held many jobs; salesman for a barber supply company, retail sporting goods, & in 1894, worked for a penny arcade in Kansas City. Herman A. DeVry became highly interested in his employers device known as the Lumiere motion picture camera and later worked as a motion picture operation in movie theatres in Texas and Arizona. In 1902, DeVry had a bicycle repair shop in Colorado and then later moved to Oklahoma working as the city electrician. From 1903-1910, Herman built equipment for magicians and even built and attempted to fly a plane in Oklahoma. In the years of 1910-1912 Herman worked on his dream of a motion picture machine or “Theatre in a Suitcase” leading up to his successful establish of the DeVry Corporation in 1913 which manufactured the parts for his equipment in 1915. In 1925 Herman opened the DeVry Summer School of Visual Instruction.

Dr. DeVry, accompanied by his friend and colleague, founded the DeForest Training School in Chicago, or present day, known as DeVry Chicago. Lee DeForest was the inventor of the Audion and later to be patented version called the Triode which was an upgraded and modified vacuum tube. The DeForest Training School was opened in 1931 as an electronics repair school and was acquired by a for-profit corporation and has grown into DeVry University having over 80 locations and in Canada.