Entrepreneurial Dominance in Businesses Large and Small, Past and Present

Reiterating and broadening a theme broached by its author over a decade ago, this article seeks to redirect the attention of business historians to the central role of the individual entrepreneur in American economic history. In both giant corporations and small start-up firms, in the late twentieth century and the early nineteenth, it argues, the presence—or absence—of intelligent, organized, and creative entrepreneurs has determined the success or failure of companies much more clearly than has the nature of their organizational charts.