ABSTRACT
Self-improvement, particularly that of the spectacular kind in which leading industrialists have emerged from the anonymous ranks, has historically appeared to exemplify both the virtues and the potential of the new nation. The Alger heroes were usually either poor uneducated waifs who gained a modest competence, or better-endowed middle-class boys who attained their proper station despite several catastrophes. The industrialists themselves often came from northeastern upper-or middle-class socioeconomic backgrounds which provided moderate if not ample advantages in terms of schooling, training, and finance. Milwaukee in the mid-nineteenth century was a new western city where job opportunities abounded, and though commerce was the basis for the city’s early economic growth, manufacturing activities soon came to the fore. The leading branches which had contributed to this industrial achievement in the forty-year period before 1880 included flour milling, clothing, iron goods, construction materials, and liquors.
