The Social Background of Nineteenth-Century Innovators in the American Iron and Steel Industry

Abstract

A standard folk tale is of the immigrant who rose from poverty to a place of wealth in American business by ability and hard work. Some historians have questioned this story. They have found that most notable businessmen were native born of upper-middle class backgrounds. An examination of nineteenth century steel industry innovators, however, demonstrates that the rags-to-riches story is not totally irrelevant. A statistical analysis shows that the proportion of immigrants and men from working class and farming backgrounds among a sample of steel industry innovators is significantly greater than those in the samples of the other writers.