Black Entrepreneurship in America

In both scholarly and popular literature on American entrepreneurship, the focus is often on nineteenth-century inventors like John Deere and Eli Whitney or on “robber barons” like Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, and Cornelius Vanderbilt. This focus has obscured the fact that not all our nation’s entrepreneurs were White or, for that matter, male. In this issue of History Now, six historians bring to life the history of Black entrepreneurship in America, their essays adding depth and complexity to US economic history.

Julie Winch begins our issue with a close look at “James Forten, Sailmaker.” In eighteenth-century Philadelphia, James’s father, Thomas, was an anomaly: he was free and Black and a wage-earning journeyman in the profitable sailmaking trade. Thomas died when James was only seven years old. As soon as the opportunity arose, young James went to sea on an American privateer during the last years of the American Revolution. Returning to Philadelphia, he accepted a job with his father’s old employer at his sail-loft factory. James Forten was rapidly promoted and ultimately became the master of the sail loft. By the age of sixty-eight, he was a “gentleman of color,” his wealth built not only upon sailmaking but on investments in real estate, bank stock, and other businesses.

In “Mary Ellen Pleasant, Freedom-Fighting Entrepreneur,” Lynn M. Hudson introduces us to an African American woman who was both an abolitionist and a capitalist. She grew up in the “abolitionist hotbed” of Nantucket, Massachusetts, where she began her career in commerce as a shop clerk. She then moved to Boston and married James Smith, a prosperous abolitionist. When Smith died, he left her a healthy inheritance. Mary used the money to move to San Francisco in the early 1850s, at the height of the gold rush. She invested her remaining money wisely, and discreetly, and established herself as a leading agent on the western route of the Underground Railroad. By 1869 she owned and operated an exclusive boardinghouse frequented by railroad tycoons. By the 1880s she could boast of a sizeable empire of boardinghouses and real estate. But she became a target of lawsuits brought by other wealthy Californians and, at her death in 1904, she had lost a considerable portion of her fortune. Pleasant is a remarkable example of a hard-nosed capitalist and idealistic champion of civil rights and equality for African Americans.

In his essay, “‘Prince of Darkness’: Jeremiah G. Hamilton, Wall Street’s First Black Millionaire,” Shane White shatters our assumptions about nineteenth-century US financial history. Hamilton earned his fortune as a broker and an adept, skilled financial manipulator who operated in the all-White New York business world in the middle of the nineteenth century. His actions earned him the nickname “Prince of Darkness.” His money-making schemes, like those of some White counterparts, were often scams; he insured vessels that mysteriously sank in order to collect the insurance money. Although the Crash of 1837 wiped out much of his fortune and left him with angry creditors, Hamilton landed on his feet with new financial enterprises. Although Hamilton was a “Master of the Universe” in the financial world, as a Black man he was subject to all the prejudice and danger other Black men faced. He dared to marry a much younger White woman, and this prompted members of NYC’s Draft Riot of 1863 to surround his house and threaten to hang him. Hamilton wisely fled. He died on May 19, 1875, no longer seen as a scoundrel but as a respectable entrepreneur.

Erica Ball introduces us to one of the most successful female entrepreneurs in “Madam C. J. Walker: A Life of Reinvention.” Walker’s was a true rags-to-riches story, from cotton plantation worker to “the richest colored woman in the world.” In the late 1880s she moved to St. Louis where she met and worked as an agent for a woman who had developed a hair care product for African American women. By 1905 she was on the move again, heading to Denver. Here she married Charles Walker, and became Madam C. J. Walker, purveyor of her own “Wonderful Hair Grower.” Within fifteen years her business was an international operation, and she had an income of a quarter of a million dollars a year. Madam Walker also became a major Black philanthropist, providing scholarships to Black students and supporting the YMCA. She was a captain of industry in the specialized realm of beauty.

Robert E. Weems, Jr., offers us a look at Black success stories in “The History of Black Entrepreneurship in Chicago.” Weems introduces us to Black businessmen who made their fortunes in diverse fields, including real estate, retail furniture sales, undertaking, catering, and saloon ownership. In the twentieth century, African American business leaders moved into newspaper publishing and banking. Hard hit by the Great Depression, Black entrepreneurs once again thrived during the post-World War II era.

Finally, Andrea E. Smith-Hunter, a professor of management, discusses the “Challenges and Opportunities for Black Women Entrepreneurs in the Global Arena.” She notes that businesses owned by Black women grew 50% from 2014 to 2019, expanding to 2,079,000 firms and constituting 52.1% of all Black-owned businesses. But these female entrepreneurs face major challenges: problems securing initial loans or lines of credit, weak social networks, and human capital issues. Too many Black women today, she notes, are stuck in lower-level positions and thus managerial opportunities are not available to them. Those who become business owners have trouble finding reliable employees. The COVID crisis pressed more Black women to explore new markets for their products and services through electronic means, rather than focusing only on local markets. Smith-Hunter ends her essay with a consideration of what can move Black women entrepreneurs to billionaire status, an ambition she does not consider impossible even if difficult.

The essays in this issue are supplemented by valuable educational resources from the Gilder Lehrman Institute’s archives, including previous issues of History Now on related topics, videos, and spotlighted primary sources from the Gilder Lehrman Collection. The issue’s special feature is a June 2024 episode of Book Breaks featuring Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University, discussing his bestselling book, We Are the Leaders We Have Been Looking For.

Nicole and I wish you an exciting and rewarding new school year. We will offer you other issues of History Now in 2024 and 2025 that we hope will enrich your classroom experience.

Carol Berkin, Editor, History Now
Presidential Professor of History, Emerita, Baruch College & the Graduate Center, CUNY

Nicole Seary, Associate Editor, History Now
Senior Editor, The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History