Caspar Wistar
Caspar Wistar (1696 – 1752) belonged to the vanguard of German immigrants to British North America. Within a short time of his arrival in Philadelphia, he managed to establish himself as a brass button maker and merchant of European goods. Read More »
Jacob Beringer
Jacob Beringer, along with his older sibling Frederick, founded Beringer Brothers Winery in St. Helena, California (Napa County) in 1875. Read More »
Christian Heurich
During the first half of the twentieth century, Christian Heurich, Sr., was the most prominent brewer in Washington, DC and was also regarded as an elder statesman of the American brewing industry as a whole. Read More »
Rudolph Wurlitzer
Rudolph Wurlitzer established a substantial music trade and manufacturing company, the Rudolph Wurlitzer Company, which sold a wide range of goods, including musical instruments for marching bands, violins, harps, and pianos. Read More »
Carl Laemmle
Carl Laemmle was the founder of Universal Pictures Company and one of the founding fathers of Hollywood and the studio system. Read More »
Kurt Wolff
After fleeing Europe in 1941, Kurt and Helen Wolff founded Pantheon Books Inc. in 1942 in the United States. The imprint was eventually bought by Random House and made a mark for itself with a distinguished social-political program. Read More »
Welcome to Immigrant Entrepreneurship
Immigrant entrepreneurship was one of the decisive factors in the United States' rise as an economic superpower in the late nineteenth century. The country benefited from the relative openness and freedom that attracted talent from around the world and encouraged minorities who fled discrimination elsewhere to try their luck.
The collaborative research project Immigrant Entrepreneurship: German-American Business Biographies, 1720 to the Present explores the entrepreneurial and economic capacity of immigrants by investigating the German-American example in the United States. It traces the lives, careers, and business ventures of German-American businesspeople of roughly the last two hundred and ninety years, integrating the history of German-American immigration into the larger narrative of U.S. economic and business history. This online biographical dictionary synthesizes the results of the collaborative research project with a large collection of archival materials. The project is also a work in progress. New materials and essays will be added on a continual basis as the project expands. Continue Reading about the project...
