Mary Ellen Pleasant
African-American entrepreneur (1814-1904)
Mary Ellen Pleasant (August 19, 1814 – January 11, 1904) was an American entrepreneur, financier, real estate magnate and abolitionist. She was arguably the first self-made millionaire of African-American heritage, preceding Madam C. J. Walker by decades.
She identified herself as "a capitalist by profession" in the 1890 United States census. Her aim was to earn as much money as she was able to help as many people as she could. With her riches she was able to provide transportation, housing, and food for survival. She trained people how to stay safe, succeed, carry themselves, and more. The "one woman social agency" served African Americans before and during the Civil War, as well as meeting a different set of needs after Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation.
She worked on the Underground Railroad and expanded it westward during the California Gold Rush era. She was a friend and financial supporter of John Brown and was well known among abolitionists. She helped women who lived in California during the California Gold Rush to stay safe and become self-sufficient.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q15499500. VIAF identifies the subject as 4254481. The Library of Congress control number is n98101221. 7 of 8 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 3 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1814, 1904 and 1890.
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This entry incorporates text from “Mary Ellen Pleasant” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.