Benjamin Butts

How this work helped shape America

Born enslaved near Petersburg, Virginia, Benjamin Butts left the South during the Civil War and eventually established an independent economic life in Wisconsin. After working as a porter and clerk in Madison, he opened his own barbershop in 1872 while still a teenager and operated the business for approximately 28 years, serving prominent customers including several Wisconsin governors. Butts combined entrepreneurship with decades of employment in state and historical institutions, becoming one of Wisconsin's earliest documented Black business owners and establishing a long-term economic presence in a city with a very small Black population.