Hartmut Berghoff & Uwe Spiekermann, eds.
Immigrant Entrepreneurship: The German-American Experience since 1700
Bulletin Supplement 12 (2016)
DownloadFrom 2010 to 2016, the German Historical Institute’s research project “Immigrant Entrepreneurship: German-American Business Biographies, 1720 to the Present,” explored the entrepreneurial role and the economic performance as well as the social and cultural experience of German-American businesspeople in the U.S.1 Combining nearly 200 thoroughly researched biographies, it off ers a new integrative perspective not only to trace the lives, careers, and business ventures of signifi cant immigrants but also to answer core questions of American, business, and migration history in a new way. Using a freely accessible website, the project presents the results of thorough research not only into the academic world but also into the general public. It is part of the German Historical Institute’s ongoing commitment to digital and public history
Contents
Introduction
Immigrant Entrepreneurship as a Challenge for Historiography
Hartmut Berghoff and Uwe Spiekermann
The Analysis of Immigrant Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneur Biographies as Microhistories of X
Jürgen Finger
Why Biographies? Actors, Agencies, and the Analysis of Immigrant Entrepreneurship
Uwe Spiekermann
The Immigrant Entrepreneurship Project: Rationale, Design, and Outcome
Hartmut Berghoff
A Credit to Their Nation: Eastern European Jewish Immigrant “Bankers,” Credit Access, and the Transnational Business of Mass Migration, 1873-1914
Rebecca Kobrin
Entrepreneurship in the Mirror of Biographical Analysis
From the Colonial Economy to Early Industrialization
Johann Christoph Sauer: Pioneer of the German-American Press
Hans Leamann
Johann Andreas Albrecht: Making Rifles in Eighteenth-Century Moravian Economies
Scott Paul Gordon
The Emergence of an Industrial Nation
Mathilde Franziska Anneke (1817-1884): Social Entrepreneur and Suffragette
Stephani Richards-Wilson
A Reputation for Cross-Cultural Business: Henry Villard and German Investment in the United States
Christopher Kobrak
From the End of the Gilded Age to the Progressive Era
“A Most Remarkable Man”: Adolphus Busch and the Evolution of the American Brewing Industry
Timothy J. Holian
Jacob H. Schiff, Banker and Philanthropist
Bernice Heilbrunn
The Age of the World Wars
Making Entertainment American: Florenz Ziegfeld Jr.
Heather Hester
An Ordinary Man among Titans: The Life of Walter P. Spreckels
Uwe Spiekermann
Builder of the Liberal Consensus: Henry J. Kaiser (1882-1967)
Tim Schanetzky
From the Postwar Boom to Global Capitalism
“My Golden Gut” and Other Stories: How Lillian Vernon Built Her Brand
Ute Mehnert
Political Ideology and Economic Activity: Peter Thiel’s Libertarian Entrepreneurship
Meghan O’Dea