From two very different seats—she at her yellow Formica kitchen table, he at his antique French provincial desk—Lillian Vernon and Byron Lewis both built business empires. Public history professor Kathleen Franz helped chronicle their trailblazing stories as part of the landmark American Enterprise exhibition at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.
 
“Lillian Vernon, Kitchen Table Millionaire” and “Byron Lewis, Ad King Extraordinaire” opened on October 17 in the exhibition’s Consumer Era (1940s–1970s) section. American Enterprise, which debuted in 2015, immerses audiences in the often-contentious relationship between capitalism and democracy, from the mid-1700s to the present.
 
“Our team decided very early on to dedicate storytelling to unexpected entrepreneurs, including women and people of color,” says Franz, curator and chair of the museum’s work and industry division. “We’ve got the traditional stories too, but the fact the exhibition opens with the story of Métis women fur traders tells audiences they’re in for some surprises.”
 
The Smithsonian acquired during the pandemic Vernon’s table, scrapbooks, and early merchandise samples from what would become a multimillion-dollar catalog business. “There are lots of stories of men who were innovators—people like Bill Gates—who started their business in garages,” Franz says. “It’s nice to celebrate the female version of that, with the kitchen table evoking the ‘second shift’ and the challenges of running a business while also running a household.”
 
Founded by Lewis in 1969, UniWorld Group became the first Black-owned advertising agency to land a major campaign with the 3 Musketeers candy bar, casting an African American actor as one of the swashbucklers. “He centered Blackness as beautiful and rewrote the rules about how to market to Black consumers—people with buying power, who had nonetheless been ignored by the major brands,” Franz says. Among Lewis’s possessions on exhibit: the three swords gifted to him for his Mars candy campaign and the African artifacts and furniture from his New York City office.
 
American Enterprise runs for 25 years but is due for a more comprehensive refresh in 2026.