Capital City: New York City and the Men Behind America's Rise to Economic Dominance, 1860-1900 [Deckle Edge] [Hardcover]

Thomas Kessner (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2003

We take it for granted today that New York City is the nation's financial capital. But why New York? Why not Boston or Philadelphia, Baltimore or Charleston -- or any of the other East Coast cities? In "Capital City" Thomas Kessner tells the story of how an undistinguished port city rose to become the center of finance in the United States -- and the world.

With the opening of the Erie Canal and access to the Great Lakes and the Midwest, New York became the principal port and chief trading center of a growing nation. Some of New York's merchants -- most notably the all-but-forgotten Moses Taylor -- discovered that lending money to shippers was more profitable than shipping itself. As shipping prospered and money accumulated in New York, a growing banking center emerged. By the time of the Civil War, New York was the chief financier of the Union cause.

From across the land, New York attracted the driven, ambitious men who would direct the post-Civil War expansion of the nation, underwriting the development of the West and the building of the world's largest railroad network. Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jay Gould, Andrew Carnegie, J. P. Morgan, and John D. Rockefeller were drawn to New York's business culture of daring capital, bold investment, and economic venture. New York banks set the interest rates for the nation. New York's stock exchange fixed the price of securities. New York investors financed and dominated the large new corporations, and Wall Street became synonymous with the power of money. Despite panics and depressions, labor movements and populist crusades, Wall Street converted American industry from family-owned businesses to integrated corporations that drew on banking, accounting, and legal services all located in new office buildings in a booming downtown business district. New York was literally reconstructed by business interests that determined the location of parks, transportation, and museums. A new upper-class culture developed and influenced other leading cities.

When John Pierpont Morgan first arrived on Wall Street, not a single industrial concern was listed on the New York Stock Exchange. By the time he completed the U.S. Steel consolidation, the NYSE listed more than 1,000 companies, including the foundation businesses of the twentieth-century economy.

"Capital City" is the story of how Morgan, Carnegie, Rockefeller, and colleagues no less colorful helped transform New York and change the nation in the process.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The epicenter of the American economy since the Civil War and the birthplace of modern capitalism, New York City played a significant role in transforming "a small nation of scattered farms into the world's leading economic power," writes Thomas Kessner. Focusing on the four decades between 1860 and 1900, Kessner engagingly illustrates how Gotham City, in addition to funding the Union victory and financing the railroads heading west, also became the nation's busiest port and the center of banking, information, and manufacturing by attracting the most driven, energetic, competitive, and innovative people in the world. Woven into his narrative are detailed portraits of legendary individuals such as John D. Rockefeller, Jay Gould, Cornelius Vanderbuilt, Andrew Carnegie, and J.P. Morgan, all of whom defined the Gilded Age and ushered in the American century. Possessing the right stuff at precisely the right moment in history, these men took full advantage of the permissive, even chaotic, business climate of New York to create colossal wealth for themselves as well as the nation, rewriting the rules of commerce and investing the process: "No succeeding generation enjoyed the economic power, the open political atmosphere, and the shaping influence available to this group of capitalists," Kessner writes. This remarkable boom (and occasional bust) period also triggered an ethical shift in which "business decisions came to turn less on what was right or good, than on what was strictly legal." Greed and corruption were rampant during this time as many unscrupulous speculators hurried to cash in before regulations closed loopholes and laws imposed rigid rules of conduct.

Kessner does an excellent job of capturing the excitement of this era in which the American economy was transformed from a vast network of many small businesses to a relatively few number of large corporations. In presenting this rich story, the author makes clear that the city's greatest asset was the equal opportunity it offered—a claim that still holds true today, making the allure of New York as strong as ever. --Shawn Carkonen

Review

Mike Wallace Co-author of Pulitzer Prize winner Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 There are many capitalisms -- each marked by the culture and society from which it emerged. As Thomas Kessner reminds us in this graceful and lucid narrative, America's corporate economy was forged in late-nineteenth-century New York City, and, to this day, it bears the imprint of tussles among the businessmen, labor organizers, political leaders, and urban reformers of Gilded Age Gotham. -- Review

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; First Edition/First Printing edition (April 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684813513
• ISBN-13: 978-0684813516
• Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 6.5 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,425,947 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The World's Business is New York's Business, April 12, 2004

By 

Rocco Dormarunno (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Capital City: New York City and the Men Behind America's Rise to Economic Dominance, 1860-1900 (Hardcover)

In his book, "Capital City: New York City and the Men Behind America's Rise to Economic Dominance, 1860-1900", Thomas Kessner has taken what might be considered a dry subject and made it a swift-moving narrative of power, ego, and intrigue, on the one hand, and another narrative of civic pride, fiscal genius, and apparent historic inevitability.

What becomes clear in this epic story is that everything we associate with New York can be seen as deriving from its economic power. Certainly, the immense financial institutions, the extravagant city lifestyle, and the old shipping and railroad dominance of the city come to mind when we think of New York City's amazing economic influence. But Professor Kessner also makes it clear that other New York trademarks would have been impossible without it: the parks and the Brooklyn Bridge; the philanthropic endeavors and museums (sparked by such men as John Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, and J.P. Morgan); even its consolidation of all five boroughs into Greater New York in 1898 is seen as a reflection of the corporate consolidations going on in the business community. This is a fascinating thesis that is easily proved by Professor Kessner's impressive research.

What holds the book together and keeps the reader's attention (well, this reader at least), is the cast of irascible characters and their single-minded purpose to make lots of money. Not surprisingly these men progress from the merely greedy to the mercenary and cold-blooded. Compared to Carnegie, Gould, Morgan, and Vanderbilt, men like John J. Astor, A.T. Stewart and Moses Taylor come off looking like Cub Scouts. Carnegie's vicious anti-labor practices, Morgan's tyrannic disposition, Gould's unabashed attempts to own everything, and Vanderbilt's contempt for charity, are brilliantly captured, warts and all, by Professor Kessner. Of course, not everything these men did can be viewed as self-serving greed. Gould did what he did because they system as it existed allowed him to. And had not Morgan reined in the wild and wooly railroad industry, the larger economy would suffer. And his creation of US Steel--which greatly profitted Andrew Carnegie--set the standards for 20th century corporate culture in America and the world.

Cementing these tales of unchecked love for Mammon are the stories of labor's attempts to share in the profits or, at the very least, earn a fair wage. The selfless quests of remarkable men like Andrew Green, Samuel Gompers and Henry George make the picture whole. "Capital City: New York City and the Men Behind America's Rise to Economic Dominance, 1860-1900" is a brilliant study, and a testimony to Professor Kessner's dedication and research. I recommend it highly.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a brilliant history of the origins of modern capitalism, July 26, 2004

By 

Alexander Anderson G (mexico city, mexico) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Capital City: New York City and the Men Behind America's Rise to Economic Dominance, 1860-1900 (Hardcover)

This book is highly readable, although written by a history professor, and reads like almost like a novel, with plots, sub-plots and a great story.
The book describes the psychogeography of New York City in the last half of the 19th century and the brilliant, eccentric and many times shady: businessmen, politicians, civic reformers, professionals, labor leaders and others who formed the character of the great city while working out the structure and basic methods of corporate capitalism. The author explains why new york was aptly disposed for this formative role, versus other potential suitors such as Boston or Philadelphia. It also gives some insights into the urban development of new york, which, in spite of sincere efforts and unique achievements (e.g. Central Park) by many of its more inspired civic doyens, seems to reflect the requirements of business and the vestiges of political corruption: vertical growth and size were the main criteria, versus the more human dimensions dictated by a residentially-focussed city such as Paris. Indeed, as an Irishman, I was somewhat dismayed to read about the misdeeds of the Tammany Hall clique. Alas, the truth hurts, and professor Kesson deals with the

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Well written Economic History, November 19, 2003

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R. J. Marsella (California) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Capital City: New York City and the Men Behind America's Rise to Economic Dominance, 1860-1900 (Hardcover)

Capital City is a scholarly examination of the development of New York City in the age of unfettered Capitalism when great fortunes were made overnight. The book explains in great detail how characters such as Moses Taylor, Cornelieus Vanderbilt and Jay Gould contributed in ways both beneficial and harmful to the growing American economy as well as to the economic and civic life of New York itself. The sense of a wide open country with all economic activity being governed out of the growing financial community gathering strenghth in lower Manhattan at the end of the Civil War is clearly conveyed.
This is a very entertaining and enlightening book. If you have an interest in History, Economics or Finance then I would highly recommend this.