“Pioneering Women Entrepreneurs”

Armer, Gina R. M. “Pioneering Women Entrepreneurs.” Journal of Business Management and Change. Spring (2020): 3-23.

The objective of Armer’s study of Mary Baker Eddy’s establishment of her Massachusetts Metaphysical College is to highlight the achievements of women pioneers in higher education and entrepreneurial successes. She cites Gillian Gill and Robert Peel for their specific analyses of Eddy’s college within the context of the Christian Science movement. But her study of Barbara Miller Solomon’s work on women in higher education and Angel Kwolek-Folland’s work on nineteenth-century women as business owners brings to light “Eddy’s contribution to the field of business [as] impressive” (16). Characteristics needed for a successful business enterprise of the time included taking risk, managerial skills, knowledge of the product and the market, financial resources to produce capital, and enough success to produce profits. Armer argues that Eddy succeeded in demonstrating all of these traits. The evidence lies in the entrepreneurial spread of Christian Science through its educational institutes across America, as well as the fact that over 100 years following her closing of the college, contemporary teachers are in effect graduates of that college and now reach the remotest bounds of the globe. Armer claims that in all her research, no other college or instructor produced such a great response in its female students.

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ISSN: 1937-6839