This Women’s History Month, let’s learn about women in the business world.
Above image: Margaret Rudkin (1897-1967). She “built a home bakery business into the Pepperidge Farm Company, a multimillion dollar corporation that produces breads, pastries, and other foods. Her company became the largest independent bakery business in the United States.”
Government Resources
The official government website for Women’s History Month celebrates by collecting resources on women’s history, including from the National Archives.
One resource mentioned on their site in the past is The Inflection Point with Lauren Schiller. This is made available through the American Archive of Public Broadcasting, “a collaboration between the Library of Congress and GBH.”
This “collection contains 137 episodes from the nationally syndicated public radio show and podcast featuring conversations with women activists, entrepreneurs, professionals, performers, academics, and authors who have been using their expertise and voices to make a difference for women everywhere.”
Biographies of Women in Business
From A to Z of Women: American Women Business Leaders and Entrepreneurs via the library’s Credo Reference database:
Olive Ann Beech “cofounded Beech Aircraft Corporation with her husband. After his death, she took charge of the company for thirty years and expanded the business so that it became a leading manufacturer of private airplanes, with sales of more than $200 million by 1978.”
Clara Brown was freed “after fifty-seven years in slavery. … She moved west to Colorado during the 1859 gold rush and started a successful laundry business. With the money she earned, Brown reunited her scattered family. She left an estate worth more than ten thousand dollars.”
Lorraine Hariton “achieved success in the technology industry as senior vice president of development and marketing for Network Computing Devices, Inc., a strategic partner of IBM. … She was also chief executive officer (CEO) of Beatnik, Inc., a maker of software to play music online.”
Tillie E. Lewis “brought a new agricultural crop to the United States and pioneered the processing of the pomodoro tomato in her successful food products business, which she began during the Great Depression. Lewis achieved several business “firsts,” including becoming the first woman to own a canning plant in the United States.”
Annie Turnbo Malone “built a business empire and provided opportunities for thousands of people to learn new skills and earn a living through selling her hair products and cosmetics. She overcame childhood poverty, racial discrimination, and other challenges to succeed.”
Indra Nooyi “is the first woman CEO of PepsiCo, the world’s fourth largest food and beverage business, and she is also as the company’s first CEO who was not born in the United States.”
Dorothy Shaver “was the first woman president of a multimillion dollar corporation. As president of Lord & Taylor department stores, she earned the highest salary ever paid to a woman as of that time—$110,000 a year during the mid-1940s.”
Vera Wang, “the daughter of Chinese immigrants” who “founded a successful design company known for its luxury bridal wear and evening gowns, has been called the world’s most influential bridal wear designer.”
Other Library Resources
Women at the Top: Why Are There Still So Few Women Business Leaders? (film series, 2012, 2 1-hour episodes)
Hilary Devey explores problems and solutions to the lack of female leadership in business.
Feminine Capital: Unlocking the Power of Women Entrepreneurs (eBook, 2015) by Barbara Orser and Catherine Elliott
“Drawing on four decades of award-winning research, Feminine Capital reveals how women are harnessing different approaches to doing business.”
Boss Lady: How Three Women Entrepreneurs Built Successful Big Businesses in the Mid-Twentieth Century (eBook, 2017) by Edith Sparks
“Edith Sparks restores the careers of three pioneering businesswomen–Tillie Lewis (founder of Flotill Products), Olive Ann Beech (cofounder of Beech Aircraft), and Margaret Rudkin (founder of Pepperidge Farm) … By contextualizing the careers of these hugely successful yet largely forgotten entrepreneurs, Sparks adds a vital dimension to the history of twentieth-century corporate America and provides a powerful lesson on what it took for women to succeed in this male-dominated business world.”
“Gender-inclusive Gatekeeping: How (Mostly Male) Predecessors Influence the Success of Female CEOs” (article, 2018, from Academy of Management Journal) by Priyanka Dwivedi, Aparna Joshi, and Vilmos F. Misangyi
“Male-typed leadership schemas have been widely acknowledged as barriers to women’s success in leadership roles. We explore how local organizational agents and contexts enable women leaders to overcome these barriers and achieve success at the highest levels in firms.”
The Collective Wisdom of High-Performing Women: Leadership Lessons from The Judy Project (eBook, 2019) by Colleen Moorehead
“How can women become effective leaders in large organizations without sacrificing who they are, as women and as mothers? This book answers the question: They should live out the 10 characteristics of today’s winning leaders.”
Looking for something else? Ask a librarian!