Keeping it in the Family: The Schoellkopfs and Serial Entrepreneurship across Generations

Jacob Frederick Schoellkopf immigrated to the United States in 1842 and through a combination of thoughtful, strategic decision-making and a fair dose of luck, built a family empire in and around Buffalo, New York, that he passed down to his son and grandsons. Trained in Wurttemberg as a tanner, he took major risks in the U.S. by venturing into commercial sectors in which he had no knowledge or experience. Yet, by working closely with native-born Americans who were experts in these fields and by sending his children back to Germany for further education, he found himself on the cut­ ting edge of a number of fields including hydroelectric power generation and aniline dye production. His life offers an instructive case study in serial en­ trepreneurship and illustrates the transatlantic flows of financial and human capital that contributed to the Second Industrial Revolution in the United States during the late nineteenth century.'