Investing in Themselves: The Harvard Case and the Origins of the Third American-Jewish Commercial Elite *

What some have seen as the Jewish penetration of the American economy and others simply an adaption to it occurred in two related patterns, one through business, the other through an enhancement of skills. In the former we can see how Jewish entrepreneurs gravitated toward new, unpreempted areas of the economy where they established new industries. They were as much "courageous enterprisers" in establishing the film industry during the twenties as they were in establishing the fur and Indian trades during the Colonial era. ¹