Immigrant Entrepreneurship website featured on Max Weber Stiftung blog
February 29, 2012
The GHI project Immigrant Entrepreneurship: German-American Business Biographies, 1720 to the Present was recently profiled in "Wenn Einwanderer zu Unternehmern werden," a piece published on the new blog portal of the Max Weber Stiftung, the public foundation that sponsors the ten overseas German humanities institutions. The project website, launched earlier this year, now features more than fifty biographies of first- and second-generation German-Americans who became notable entrepreneurs in the United States. Many well-known American corporations, from Anheuser-Busch and Boeing to Weyerhaeuser and Yuengling, were started by first-generation immigrants, and other companies like the New York Times and Sears were shaped by the leadership of second-generation German-Americans. When complete, the project will provide more than 200 biographical articles of entrepreneurs from 18th-century fur trader John Jacob Astor to contemporary mail-order magnate Lillian Vernon. In addition to biographical articles, the project includes contextual essays providing background on how broader trends such as the 1848 revolutions and Prohibition have shaped the lives and experiences of German-Americans, and will expand to include suggestions for classroom use in both university and secondary school settings.