Immigrant Entrepreneurship: German American Business Biographies, 1720 to the Present

Immigrant Entrepreneurship: German American Business Biographies, 1720 to the Present is an ambitious digital project aimed at fostering research into the links between these two central themes in the history of the United States. German immigrants and their descendants have played a disproportionately large role in the American business community. The project traces their lives, careers, and business ventures from colonial times to the present, integrating the history of German American immigration into the larger narrative of U.S. economic and business history and situating the American past in a transnational framework.  

The website itself is beautifully designed and easy to navigate—the home page lists seven sections at the top of the screen: "About," "Overview," "Resources," "Volumes," "Themes," "Regions," and "Browse." The core of the project is the section "Volume," which consists of about 250 biographical articles of first and second generation German American entrepreneurs, and assembled into five chronological volumes:  

 1. From the Colonial Economy to Early Industrialization, 1720–1840 

  2. The Emergence of an Industrial Nation, 1840–1893 

  3. From the End of the Gilded Age to the Progressive Era, 1893–1918 

  4. The Age of the World Wars, 1918–1945 

  5. From the Postwar Boom to Global Capitalism, 1945–Today

Each of these volumes features roughly fifty biographical essays on German American immigrant entrepreneurs. The biographies record their specific business achievements and the broader contributions that they made to their respective commercial sectors. By clicking different entries of biographies, users can read the introductory essays of German American business elites and explore a series of images that relates to the person. Each entry also provides a complete bibliography, allowing users to perform further research. Additionally, each volume includes contextual essays that analyze the wider business and immigration themes of the period. These broader essays will delve into the specific sectors or industries, geographic clusters, small businesses, religions, or major events of American history that affected German Americans and their businesses, such as Prohibition and the Temperance Movement. 

Another important section is "Browse," which lists five major types of resources: entries, documents, images, videos, and references. It'll allow users to explore a wide range of materials, including trade journals, tax registers, census entries, credit reports, statistics and raw data on businesses and immigration, visual and media materials such as archival photos, video clips and audio recordings, and interviews with contemporary entrepreneurs. Under the "Resources" section, the tab named "Archives & Libraries" lists many of the archival collections and sources that were used in researching the project and individual biographical articles. It includes collections relevant to immigration and entrepreneurship generally, but also relevant sources on the individual entrepreneurs’ lives and businesses. By clicking the hyperlinks, users will be directed to related websites of the host institutions. The "Bibliographies" allows users to browse selected secondary sources from the biographical articles and essays by topic. 

Immigrant Entrepreneurship is a treasure which traces the changes in the patterns and backgrounds of immigrant entrepreneurship over the course of almost 300 years of American history, as well as their relation to changes in the political, economic, and social parameters of immigration. This project is a unique tool for teaching and research. By letting students read the biographies and primary sources, teachers may ask a series of questions and let students to think about the potential answers: What motivated German entrepreneurs to migrate to the United States?  What were the social backgrounds of these businesspeople?  Were they self-made? How did German immigrants perceive themselves?  What part of their culture did they preserve, and did this play any role in their success in the market? Did these firms use their own ethnic background for brand formation and advertising, or did they hide it and present themselves as Americans? This resource makes readily available – in a convenient, user-friendly and easily searchable format – invaluable materials that would otherwise effectively be lost. By synthesizing the diverse fields of business history, entrepreneurship research, migration history and German American studies, the project will make a significant contribution to a wide array of academic disciplines and lay the groundwork for further research.