ABSTRACT

Proof that Americans can, and belief that they should, rise from rags to riches supports the country’s commitments to equal opportunity, self-development, personal responsibility, and individual achievement. Throughout history the American Dream has stirred the American people, and businessmen, perhaps even more than politicians, have basked in the glory of supposedly surmounting humble beginnings. The period of intense research during the 1940s and 1950s peaked in 1955 with the publication of two massive explorations of the subject: Mable Newcomer’s classic, The Big Business Executive, and W. Lloyd Warne’s and James C. Abegglen’s Occupational Mobility in American Business and Industry. The expansion and subsequent sluggishness of Chicago’s economic and population growth coincided with the decadal birth and arrival frequencies of the leading businessmen. Regional birthplace frequencies in the Chicago and national business elites showed similar trends in the decreasing portion of north-eastemers in each subsequent birth cohort.