>> Lynn Weinstein:
Good morning everyone.
Thank you for joining me today.
My name again is Lynn Weinstein
and I'm a business librarian,
a reference librarian who works
in the science and business
reading room in the Adams Building,
which is on second in E Street Southeast.
The building was opened in 1939.
So 85 years ago, we're just
celebrating our anniversary, and
it's a beautiful Beaux Arts building,
and I welcome you to
come visit us and see
our collections there.
Um, you do need a reader's
registration card from either
Madison or Jefferson
before you come over.
I've brought some brochures
and information that's over here,
some bookmarks and some
stickers that are on this table
that you're more than welcome to take.
Um, there's a lot to our
collection, um, that you can see
in the reading room, but beyond that,
we create a lot of library guides,
blogs, and other materials
so that you can have
access to our reading room and
the information it contains at home.
And today, we're going to
take a journey into the story of
several iconic Hispanic
American business entrepreneurs
using a library guide I
recently created called
Hispanic Americans in Business and
Entrepreneurship, a resource guide
as a jumping off point,
and we'll be looking at
information at the lives of
several iconic figures
Desi Arnaz, Federico Jose Ronstadt,
Don Prudencio, and Carolina Unanue,
as well as Don Vincent
Martinez Eboy.
These entrepreneurs have left
a lasting mark on American
business history in various
industries, including
entertainment, retail,
food production, the cigar
industry and urban planning.
Desi Arnaz was a multifaceted
entrepreneur and entertainer.
He was born in Cuba, but fled
with his family when he was a
child in the 1933 revolution.
He moved to Miami and they
lived in relative poverty there.
He developed his musical skills
and he was developed a career
singing and playing the Congo drums.
He became a hit in the New York
City club scene and popularized
the Congo line.
He led the Desi Arnaz
Orchestra, was cast in a
Broadway play, and later became
popular in Hollywood, where he
moved and created a kind of traveling
show with his wife, Lucille Ball.
The two created a
groundbreaking television show,
I Love Lucy, and he was one of
the first Latino actors to play
a lead role in an American
television show, and he broke
a lot of barriers.
The network executives were not happy
about him being cast in that role.
They didn't think the American
public would really buy that.
Um, and he was able to
introduce some Cuban culture
as well as some Spanish language
phrases in the TV show.
Um, he did acquire the
syndication rights for I Love Lucy.
So that made him
a very wealthy guy.
Um, he was a pioneer in the use
of the multi-camera setup.
Is this going okay?
>> That wasn't us.
>> Lynn Weinstein: Okay.
>> You can point more to your mouth.
>> Lynn Weinstein: Okay. He
was a pioneer in the use of a
multi-camera setup in front of a live
studio audience, a technique that's
still widely used in TV today.
He acquired RKO Studios in
1957 for $6 million, and the
following year he made it a
publicly traded company, and
Desilu Productions went on to
produce some iconic television
series such as Star Trek,
Mission Impossible
and The Untouchables, and
Lucille Ball and Arnaz continued
to work together until
they divorced in 1960, and
two years later, in 1962,
Lucille Ball bought out Desi Arnaz
and took over Desilu Productions.
So the Library of Congress
actually has a pretty
rich collection of Arnaz
and Lucille Ball materials.
They have primary sources such
as scores, sound recordings, and
photographs. We also have
secondary sources such as
scrapbooks and books, including
things like his autobiography.
So this page that's featured
here, doing historical company
research, is a library guide
that you could use to look at
his company, Desilu
Productions, or any other
historical or company that's no
longer in existence, to find
print and online resources that you
could use at the Library of Congress,
or at your local library to find
out more about older companies.
The second entrepreneur that I'll
cover is Frederico Jose Ronstadt,
also known as Fred Ronstadt.
He was an influential Mexican
businessman and cultural figure
in Tucson, Arizona.
He played a crucial role in the
city's growth and prosperity.
Ronstadt founded the F. Ronstadt
Wagon and Carriage Company,
which later became F. Ronstadt
Hardware and Machinery Company.
He became the largest business
in southern Arizona of its kind.
He dealt in hardware,
blacksmithing, and
transportation. He manufactured
and repaired wagons, carriages,
and farm equipment, and it
was an area that was largely
agricultural and mining,
so that was very useful.
He owned a bunch of car
dealerships, and he was very
involved in the creation of the
electrical streetcar system there,
so much so that they named
the Ronstadt Transit Center
after him in Tucson to
reflect his impact on the city.
He was a community leader.
He was also a musician.
He played several instruments,
including guitar, violin, and harp,
and he had his own
local band that he led.
His granddaughter is Linda
Ronstadt, and she's featured on
the guide as a current entrepreneur.
So his legacies include
contributions to both the
cultural and economic fabric of
Tucson, and he's remembered as a
visionary entrepreneur
and community leader.
He was an important cultural
bridge between the American and
Mexican communities in Tucson,
and the Library of Congress has
access to books, articles,
and maps that illustrate his
contributions to Tucson's development.
And the book that's featured
here is his autobiography.
Don Prudencio and Carolina
Unanue and his are the stories
of Spanish immigrants to Puerto
Rico and then New York City.
There is a story of perseverance
and innovation in
the creation of Goya Foods, a
household name in the food industry.
They founded the Food Company
in 1936, starting as a small
storefront in Manhattan, New York.
They started their business by
importing Spanish products like
olives, olive oils and sardines,
which they sold to the
growing Hispanic New York Community.
And Carolina was very
instrumental in ensuring quality
in those products.
They changed their name to Goya
after the famous Spanish painter,
because they thought
it would resonate with the
Spanish community there,
and that it would be easier to
pronounce and remember
than their family name.
And, um, they were able to
introduce Hispanic flavors
ingredients to a wider
American audience.
And today, Goya Foods is the
largest Hispanic owned company
in the United States.
It's under third generation
private ownership, which means
the family owns it. It's not
publicly traded at all.
So it's now headquartered in
Jersey City, New Jersey, since 74.
They've had a bunch of recent
global expansions in the last 20 years.
They now employ 4000
people and generate
over $1.5 billion in sales annually.
And through the library's
collections, you can access
books, photographs and
articles, marketing materials
about them. But what might be
most important is our
subscription databases that
you can only access online.
Because as a private company,
it's a little trickier to look
at information about them.
And we do have a doing company
research library guide that's
online, that will show you print
and online sources that you can use.
And we'll show you what sources
we have at the library that
you can use within our library
buildings, what subscription
resources we have.
Don Vincente Martinez Ybor
was a cigar industrialist and
one of the founders of Ybor City.
He was born in Spain, but moved
to Cuba as a young man and then
to Florida. And he is a seminal
figure in the cigar industry and
developing this city as part of
Tampa or within the realm of
Tampa, Florida.
He was a supporter of Cuban
independence from Spain, and
due to his support of that
movement, he had to leave Cuba,
essentially. And because he
was at odds with the Spanish
colonial government, so he
moved his cigar operations to
Key West. But then he
experienced a lot of labor
unrest. So he negotiated with
officials in Tampa to acquire
land for a factory and a city
like a company town that he
developed and brought other
cigar industrialists and other
people to invest in the city.
Um, and he wanted he ended up
attracting thousands of
immigrants to come work there
at a time when cigars were
hand-rolled and the process
was very labor intensive.
So he was trying to avoid
unionization of workers, to be
honest with you. But by doing
that, he was trying to create
a bit of a utopian city.
So, he did that by having a
lot of, um, services like a lot
of stores, and he built worker
housing specifically for workers
that they could afford.
That was pleasant.
And so he was a bit of a
progressive employer for the time.
And company towns were
something that did occur a lot
at that time.
He also donated public land
to be used in hospitals and
schools. So he did help transform
Tampa into a major
industrial and cultural hub.
And he brought a lot of
immigrants from different ethnic
backgrounds, including Cuba,
Spain, Italy and Eastern Europe
there. And you can see that
cultural heritage in the
architecture that remains there.
Of course, they built a highway
through it at one point in time,
but they're trying to
reconstruct that area.
And there's a historic
district there now.
I did do a special page in our
this Month in Business History
library guide that details
the founding of Ybor City.
And we have a lot of
books, articles, maps,
a dissertation and
photographs about, um, Ybor City.
And we even have a sound
recording of a Cuban cigar worker
who worked in one of his factories.
And it's kind of like an
occupational interview.
So someone went and talked to
the cigar worker about what his
experience was like working there.
And there's a transcript as well,
so you can read the transcript.
Okay. So if you're interested
in doing research, of course,
I recommend our library guide
as a jumping off point.
Once again, it's Hispanic
Americans in Business and
Entrepreneurship, a resource guide.
And you could Google that in
Library of Congress and it will
come up. So we have pages that
cover biographies and different
industries including fashion,
entertainment, media, stem.
And we have a lot of statistics
too, because, you know,
the Hispanic community is creating
the most businesses these days,
and they're also the largest
growing marketplace.
So there's something to really
pay attention to if you're
looking at current statistics.
Right. Um, so what I recommend
here in terms of additional
search tips is we do have something
called Chronicling America,
which is a digitized
newspaper, and we have
newspapers from 1756 to 1963
that are freely available to you
at home. And there will be--
there are Spanish language, and
you can sort out for Spanish
language if that's important to you.
And there will be a
presentation here at this stage
at 4:30 today on Chronicling America.
And then also we have fire insurance
maps at the Library of Congress.
So if you're interested in looking at a
geographical area like Tampa
or Ybor City or a specific
community, you can go look at
how insurance companies used to
insure the buildings in
specific cities over time,
because they used to draw
insurance maps and show what the
buildings were constructed
of and where they were.
And they're very detailed, and
they show a lot about the growth
of a city over time.
So some of those, aside from
this great research guide that
the Geography and Maps
group has put together,
we do have freely accessible
Sanborn maps online through our
e-resources page at
e-resources.loc.gov.
So you can go there and look at
some maps from home
if you're interested.
So, we also have our geography--
I'm sorry. Our genealogy and
local history group put together
this fantastic guide, Hispanic
Origins in the United States:
A Guide to Local History and
Genealogical Resources so
you can look at surnames and how
they've changed over time, that
sort of thing. So that's
a very important guide.
And sometimes if you're looking
for a lesser-known individual,
that's a good place to go.
Um, and then finally,
don't overlook our catalog.
I mean, it is in Library of
Congress subject headings,
Library of Congress
classification code.
So that's more what you would
find in an academic library, but
it would still find you books,
and you might be able to look
them up in Google Books or Amazon.
You might be able to order a
book through another source.
Or you could go to your local
library and see if they have it,
or order it through
interlibrary loan.
So here I got some pretty
specific subject headings
for Hispanic American
businesspeople or enterprises.
And note that it is the library
of Congress does catalog these
under Hispanic.
And there's no Latinx.
Or if you're looking under
those subject headings,
you won't find anything.
And you might walk away
saying, they have nothing.
But you just have to realize
that we're very strict in how we
look at our subject headings,
and you just have to find the
right words to be able to
find the right subject headings
and find the books.
So in conclusion, the stories of
Desi Arnaz, Federico Jose Ronstadt,
Don Prudencio and Carolina
Unanue and Don Vincent
Martinez Ybor exemplified
the spirit of innovation and
determination that I feel
defines Hispanic American
entrepreneurship. These iconic
entrepreneurs not only excelled
in their respective fields, but
also contributed to the cultural
and economic richness
of the United States.
I encourage you to explore
resources available at the
Library of Congress to learn
more about these extraordinary
individuals and their legacies,
and to do further research on
individuals that might
be of interest to you.
We also have an Ask a Librarian
service that you can put
questions in, and we answer you
hopefully within 3 to 5 business days.
And if you have any questions,
you can put them in.
And we do support the general
public as well as Congress.
That's one of our missions.
So thank you for your attention,
and I'm happy to answer any
questions that you may have.
And thank you very much.
[Applause]
[Music]