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Jewish American Entrepreneurs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 May 2010

Bernard Sarachek
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Abstract

This note contrasts the familial origins of 136 Jewish American entrepreneurs with those of 187 American non-Jewish entrepreneurs described in a previous study of mine. Information on both groups was drawn from published biographies. In addition, manuscript biographies were used to gather information on Jewish entrepreneurs.

Type
Notes and Discussion
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 40 , Issue 2 , June 1980 , pp. 359 - 372
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1980

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References

The author is Professor of Cultural Administration at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. He wishes to express his appreciation to the staffs of the Jewish Historical Society and the American Jewish Archives for their aid in providing research materials.

1 Sarachek, Bernard, “American Enterpreneurs and the Horatio Alger Myth,” this Journal, 38 (June 1978), 439–56Google Scholar.

2 I excluded women and entrepreneurs in entertainment and newspaper publishing from the non-Jewish sample. After making similar exclusions, 31 percent of the remaining 106 Jewish entrepreneurs were in mercantile businesses and 33 percent were in manufacturing. Only 10 percent of the non-Jewish entrepreneurs were in mercantile businesses, whereas 44 percent were in manufacturing. Information on the industry distribution of non-Jewish entrepreneurs taken from Sarachek, “Horatio Alger,” 442.

3 See Sarachek, “Horation Alger,” 441.

4 Nathan Glazer, “Social Characteristics of American Jews, 1654–1954,” American Jewish Year Book, 56 (1955), 3–41; Nathan Hurvitz, “Sources of Middle-Class Values of American Jews,” Social Forces, 37 (Dec. 1958), 117–23; Fred L. Strodtbeck, “Family Interaction, Values and Achievement,” in Marshall Sklare, ed., The Jews: Social Patterns of an American Group (Glencoe, IL, 1960), pp. 147–65; W. Lloyd Warner and LecSrole, The Social Systems of American Ethnic Groups (New Haven, 1945), p. 203.

5 Stodtbeck, “Family Interaction,” 161.

6 For a summary of seven studies of the occupational distribution of fathers of general business elite members see Sarachek, “Horatio Alger,” 447–49.

7 Arthur H. Cole, “An Approach to the Study of Entrepreneurship,” this Journal, 6 (Dec. 1946), 1–15; Joseph A. Schumpeter, “Economic Theory and Entrepreneurial History,” Essays of J. A. Schumpeter, Richard V. Clemence, ed. (Cambridge MA, 1951), p. 255.

8 Sarachek, “Horatio Alger,” 452–53.