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Three Generations Of Planter -Businessmen: The Tayloes, Slave Labor, And Entrepreneurialism In Virginia, 1710-1830, Laura Croghan Kamoie

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

This study analyzes the entrepreneurial estate-building activities of three generations of the Tayloe family of Virginia from the 1710s to the 1820s. The three John Tayloes were model planter-businessmen---that is, they combined mixed commercial agriculture with a variety of business enterprises in an effort to secure long-term financial security and social status for themselves and their heirs. This diversified approach to plantation management characterized early Virginia's "culture of progress"---an early American business culture interpreted in many different ways throughout the colonies (and later the states) that had the pursuit of a better life as its organizing premise.;The Tayloes were not …