ABSTRACT
Calling small business entrepreneurs like Barbara Gardner Proctor “heroes for the eighties,” U.S. President Ronald Reagan presented the businesswoman to a national audience in late January 1984 during his State of the Union address (Reagan, 1984). “The spirit of enterprise is sparked by the sunrise industries of high-tech and by small business people with big ideas – people like Barbara Proctor, who rose from a ghetto to build a multi-million dollar advertising agency in Chicago,” Reagan proudly declared. A few weeks earlier, Proctor was featured on the popular CBS-TV network news program 60 Minutes, interviewed by correspondent Harry Reasoner, who described her as a modern “rags-to-riches heroine” (60 Minutes, 1984). With these telecasts, Barbara Proctor’s story began to unfold in front of millions. People wondered – who is this polished and intriguing woman? Reasoner continued:
Proctor, who was already well known in Chicago’s business and advertising circles, had strategized to do something no other black woman had done before – launched Proctor & Gardner Advertising in 1970, becoming the first African-American woman to start an advertising agency.
