Jared Crawford
Director of Communications, Hall of Giants
I’ve spent much of the past year traveling the country telling people about Hall of Giants. And I’ve been struck by how folks think and talk about entrepreneurs.
When I ask people which entrepreneurs they believe should be in a museum, I hear the same names again and again: Jeff Bezos. Steve Jobs. Elon Musk. Henry Ford. Andrew Carnegie.
They are names just about everyone recognizes. Their companies changed industries and their innovations changed how we live. Their stories are woven into the fabric of our national life.
But every once in a while, someone gives me a name I’ve never heard before – and those are the ones I remember best.
I’ll hear about someone who lived down the street — and built the town’s most successful and reliable plumbing company. Or the person who started the local tree-trimming business fresh out of high school, and decades later is now a fixture in the community. Someone will invariably remember that they babysat that entrepreneur’s kids, and they’ll tell me that the family sponsors a local Little League team every season.
One common theme? The opportunities these entrepreneurs created. They’ll mention how that particular business owner gave them (or someone they know and love) their first real job. Many times, I’ll hear about how that first chance opened unexpected doors, creating a flourishing and interesting career.
Everywhere I go, someone will tell me about a local business hero. They’re not telling me about billion-dollar valuations or household-name brands; they’re not telling me names we all recognize. They’re telling me stories about community leaders who created chances – and prosperity – for others around them.
And what always strikes me, as I hear these stories, is that nobody has written them down.
We know a lot about Henry Ford. We have biographies, archives, photographs and museums. We know what he built and how he built it, just as we do for renowned contemporary entrepreneurs like Musk and Bezos.
But what of the entrepreneur who built the plumbing company that employed three generations of families in one town? Who is preserving that story?
I’ve seen that entrepreneurship is alive and thriving in every American community. It has a living history – but too much of that history lives only in people’s memories. That makes it immensely fragile. When a business closes, or a founder dies, or the children move away — the old photographs and records end up in a neglected box, if they exist at all.
Hall of Giants is being created to preserve these stories. We are committed to that work of preservation out of respect for the hard work and imagination of American entrepreneurs. We also know that new generations need the inspiration that only these stories can provide.
When we preserve the history of entrepreneurship, we’re doing much more than simply preserving the history of a handful of business legends. We’re preserving the stories of people who took a chance, built something, employed their neighbors, supported their communities and, in ways large and small, helped their corner of America flourish and prosper.
Far too many of those stories are already in danger of being lost. Hall of Giants exists to find and preserve those stories. We will make sure they get told, and told well.