Native American Heritage Month

Discover Baker Library resources with a connection to Native Americans and business.

A collage of Baker Library's facade next to the spines of 3 books.
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Quick Research Resources

  • Dive into Tribal Business News, a digital publication delivering in-depth stories, analysis, and business intelligence on all aspects of Native business and economic development activities.

  • Browse the American Indigenous Studies Resources curated by Harvard Library.

  • View the U.S. Census Bureau's My Tribal Area data tool to view job and economic data on American Indian and Alaska Native tribal areas by state.

  • Use Statista's "Consumer Insights" tool to unpack consumer attitudes and behavior for American Indians and Alaskan Natives.

  • Research US-based startups in Crunchbase (in-library only) that are lead or founded by Indigenous individuals.

  • Explore non-profit organizations via GuideStar Pro that list Indigenous Peoples as populations that they serve.

  • Use Leadership Connect to locate business leaders with a job focus on serving Native Americans.

Contemporary Collections

Contemporary Collections aim to support the research and curriculum of the Harvard Business School today and into the future. Collection activities focus on the career and professional development needs of our MBA students and alumni, as well as on access to business content to the Harvard University community at large.

Vertical Economic Integration as a Strategy for Native American Reservations

Baker's Oversized Collection consists of many governmental and institutional reports. Many of these reports give insights into business strategies at a given moment of time.

A hand-drawn model of commerce within a single tribe, depicting cash flow from agriculture and aquaculture moving through various enterprises and eventually exiting the community to flow into different cities.

Aquaculture, Fisheries, and Food Processing as a Combined Economic Development Option for Indian Communities [1977]

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This diagram comes from a 1977 report prepared for the Office of Minority Business Enterprise—a division of the U.S. Department of Commerce. It shows an integrated system that connects aquaculture, fisheries, and food processing, where waste and byproducts from one process serve as inputs for another. In doing so, it illustrates a circular, resource-efficient model of community economic development—one where both financial and material resources circulate locally to sustain growth and self-sufficiency: "If the community sets up its own business such as a motel, gas station, credit union, supermarket, variety store, etc., then the money initially flowing into this community from the basic community industries can be recycled as many as three or four times" (p. 32).

Special Collections & Archives

Special Collections and Archives collects and makes available the records of business dating from the 14th century to the present and the records of the Harvard Business School since its founding in 1908.

Seen and Unseen: Representations of Native Americans in Art, Advertising, and Commerce

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An advertisement for an exhibit called Seen and Unseen. It features an artistic depiction of Native Americans next to a train.

Exhibition curated by Kabl Wilkerson, Citizen Potawatomi Nation, PhD Student, Department of History, Harvard University and 2022 Pforzheimer Fellow, Harvard Library, through the support of Baker Library Special Collections, Harvard Business School and the Pforzheimer Fellowship, Harvard Library.

This web resource (formerly a physical exhibition) explores representations of Native Americans in the popular imagination through a selection of advertising trade cards, currency, illustrations, and sculpture from Baker Library Special Collections and the HBS Art and Artifacts Collection. Seen and Unseen looks at how companies, advertisers, and artists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries used images of “the Indian” to promote the railroad, market specific messages, or sell a range of products that included coffee and “medicinal” remedies.