A Major American Business Book, Signed
Negro Business and Business Education: Their Present and Prospective Development
Publication: New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1947. First Edition.
Notes: A scarce signed copy of an important contribution to American business history.
"Following in a tradition of black scholars such as Henry Minton, Booker T. Washington, and WEB Du Bois, Pierce published a major study in 1947 entitled Negro Business and Business Education. His scholarship is timeless.... The purpose of Negro Business and Business Education was to enhance the development of business enterprise within communities. It was written at a time when institutions of higher learning were beginning to follow the lead of Tuskegee Institute and add business schools to their liberal arts curriculum... [I]t is the most detailed study of these enterprises since WEB Du Bois's Economic Cooperation among Negroes."—Encyclopedia of African American Business History (1999).
The book grew out of a 1944 to 1946 study of Black business and business education conducted by Atlanta University and the National Urban League, financed by the General Education Board, and carried out with the participation of twenty-three Black colleges and universities, the National Negro Business League, the National Negro Insurance Association, the U.S. Bureau of the Census, and other organizations. Pierce directed the research. The survey covered nearly 4,000 Black-owned businesses in twelve cities.
Pierce was one of the first African Americans to earn a Ph.D. in mathematics (the University of St. Andrews's online biographical dictionary of mathematicians identifies him as the sixth). He had a long career in education, as chair of the mathematics department at Atlanta University and then at Texas State College for Negroes (Texas Southern University) where he ultimately was elected president of the university.
xiv, 338 pages.
Edition + Condition: First edition, first printing (states "FIRST EDITION" and H-W on the copyright page). A very good copy in a very good, double price-clipped dust jacket. There is minor loss to the spine ends and corners. This copy is signed in the year of publication, "12/17/47. For Arthur George with every good wish. Joseph A. Pierce."
A scarce book in a very scarce example of the dust jacket.
Item No: #366405
Price: $2,800