American Heritage, the world's leading history magazine, is noted for its lively articles on the history of American business and businessmen. Now 39 of the best of these, with their original illustrations, are collected here in one volume: Great Stories of American Businessmen. The teacher, the lawyer, the physician, the statesman, the scientist... all are conscious that the nature of their work and their status in society are deeply rooted in history. But the American businessman tends not to share that reassuring sense of history about his art and profession. Almost by definition, he is concerned primarily with the future. And if he looks at his history, as often as not it is locked in dense books on economics, or is served up to him in the form of two polarized myths: he is descended from brigands and blackguards; or he is the last in the line of true defenders of the American "free enterprise" system. As these articles demonstrate, his real tradition is neither black nor white. It is colorful, complex, fascinating. His businessmen ancestors have shown a remarkable ability to adapt to whatever was going on around them in the way of social and political change - and to keep right on tending a shop that now grosses a trillion dollars a year. As traditions go, this one is fraught with success - and unfailing adventure, as you will see in these pages. The subjects range across the American business scene, from Robert Morris to Samuel Slater - "Father of our factory system" - to Cyrus McCormic, Samuel Colt, Bell and his telephone, Rockefeller, James Hill and his railroads, Henry Ford... And along the way you look into the nostalgia of old "trade cards," the first soda fountain, and the Stanley steamer. There are accounts of the economics - and hazards - of colonial smuggling and piracy; the historic coal strike of 1902; the great Vanderbilt will contest; the 1929 market crash; the start of U.S. business philanthropy. The articles are illustrated with a splendid variety of historical paintings, portraits, cartoons, photographs, and sketches, many in color. - Dust jacket.