Aleichem’s narrator). To quote Kahan again, Russia’s industrialization actually widened the areas of choice for Jewish entrepreneurs. If few of them actually built railroads, many established subcontracting enterprises that supplied the railroad industry. If very few could enter oil production, many could establish themselves in oil processing, transportation, and marketing. If the basic chemicals required large capital outlays, smaller- size operations and more specialized enterprises using basic chemicals were open for Jewish entrepreneurship. Thus a large area for Jewish entrepreneurial activity was made available and was stimulated by Russian industrialization. 25 For most Jews, especially the artisans, the collapse of the Jewish economic niche in Eastern Europe meant emigration and proletarianization. For an important minority—a much larger one than among most other groups—it stood for new social and economic opportunities. In 1887 in Odessa, Jews owned 35 percent of factories, which accounted for 57 percent of all factory output; in 1900, half of the city’s guild merchants were Jews; and in 1910, 90 percent of all grain exports were handled by Jewish firms (compared to 70 percent in the 1880s). Most Odessa banks were run by Jews, as was much of Russia’s timber export industry. On the eve of World War I, Jewish entrepreneurs owned about one-third of all Ukrainian sugar mills (which accounted for 52 percent of all refined sugar), and constituted 42.7 percent of the corporate board members and 36.5 percent of board chairmen. In all the sugar mills in Ukraine, 28 percent of chemists, 26 percent of beet plantation overseers, and 23.5 percent of bookkeepers were Jews. In the city of Kiev, 36.8 percent of all corporate managers were Jews (followed by Russians at 28.9 percent). And in 1881 in St. Petersburg (outside the Pale), Jews made up about 2 percent of the total population and 43 percent of all brokers, 41 percent of all pawnbrokers, 16 percent of all brothel owners, and 12 percent of all trading house employees. Between 1869 and 1890, the proportion of business owners among St. Petersburg Jews grew from 17 percent to 37 percent. 26 The “Jewish economy” was remarkable for its high rate of innovation, standardization, specialization, and product differentiation. Jewish enterprises tended to find more uses for by-products, produce a greater assortment of goods, and reach wider markets at lower prices than their competitors. Building on previous experience and superior training, utilizing preexisting “ethnic” connections and cheap family labor, accustomed to operating on low profit