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The Robber Barons and Captains of Industry: An Amazon Guide
The late 19th and early 20th Centuries brought incredible accomplishments in manufacturing, transportation, production and quality of life. With the Industrial Revolution, man had harnessed the forces of nature for his own benefit. Electricity lit and heated cities; telegraph and telephone wires criss-crossed the nation, miles of railroad track linked cities. Behind all this activity were the Captains of Industry (Tom Wolfe would have called the “Masters of the Universe.)
Scottish Immigrant Andrew Carnegie built steel mills that fueled the shipbuilding and auto industries. Henry Clay Frick had a lock on the Coal Industry and an ill-fated association with Carnegie. The so-called “big four” from the Southwest: Mark Hopkins, Leland Stanford, Charles Crocker and Colin Huntington built the Transcontinental Railroad. The Vanderbilts built huge estates in Newport and in North Carolina. Henry Ford and ___ Dodge built the auto industry. Consumer giants like General Foods, Johnson&Johnson, Kimberly-Clark (paper goods) created new fortunes. And at the top of the food chain was John D. Rockefeller, Sr., who epitomized the Gilded Age. Financiers like Andrew Mellon,as J. Pierpont Morgan, and investment bankers like Solomon Brothers financed the projects.
Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.
The Tycoons: How Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Jay Gould, and J. P. Morgan Invented the American Supereconomy
The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance
The earliest super-capitalists were in the business of commodities: John Jacob Astor owned the monopolfy on –of all things – beaver pelts. (Beaver Hats were very fashionable on The Continent)To our North, the French and British controlled a vast continent of natural resources. The Astors controlled New York Society.
The Remarkable History of the Hudson's Bay Company: Including That of the French Traders of North-Western Canada and of the North-West, XY, and Astor Fur Companies
Empire of the Bay: The Company of Adventurers that Seized a Continent
With the advent of Railroads, the Vanderbilts, Goulds, Harrimans and others emerged. From then on it was open season.
Masters of Enterprise: Giants of American Business from John Jacob Astor and J.P. Morgan to Bill Gates and Oprah Winfrey
Consuelo and Alva Vanderbilt: The Story of a Daughter and a Mother in the Gilded Age
When the Astors Owned New York: Blue Bloods and Grand Hotels in a Gilded Age
COAL, OIL AND STEEL
Without the basic natural resources: coal and wood for building and heating…. Oil and gas for transportation…. And steel for everything, nothing would have happened.
Cornelius Vanderbilt; Cyrus McCormick, Henry Clay Frick, and the builders of the Transcontinental Railroad accomplished that:
Andrew Carnegie
Big Steel: The First Century of the United States Steel Corporation, 1901-2001
Empire Express: Building the First Transcontinental Railroad
The Century of the Reaper: An account of Cyrus Hall McCormick, the Inventor of the Reaper: of the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company, the Business he created: & of the International Harvester Company, his Heir & chief Memorial
Meet You in Hell: Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and the Bitter Partnership That Transformed America
Dark Genius of Wall Street: The Misunderstood Life of Jay Gould, King of the Robber Barons
Henry Flagler: Visionary of the Gilded Age
Follow the Money!
Morgan: American Financier
The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance
The Last Tycoons: The Secret History of Lazard Frères & Co.
The Death of the Banker: The Decline and Fall of the Great Financial Dynasties and the Triumph of the Small Investor (Vintage)
Mellon: An American Life
After the Ball: Gilded Age Secrets, Boardroom Betrayals, and the Party That Ignited the Great Wall Street Scandal of 1905
BABY OIL, SCOTCH TAPE,HERSHEY BARS, POST-TOASTIES,SHAVERS
Along with all the new money (some of which filtered downhill) came improvements in the quality of life. Think of "Band Aids" (Johnson&Johnson);
Paper towells and toilet paper; handsoap and detergent (lever bros; Procter andGamble:
Pierre S. Du Pont and the Making of the Modern Corporation
The $800 Million Pill: The Truth behind the Cost of New Drugs
Cereal Tycoon: Henry Parsons Crowell Founder of the Quaker Oats Company
Hershey: Milton S. Hershey's Extraordinary Life of Wealth, Empire, and Utopian Dreams
Robert Wood Johnson -- The Gentleman Rebel
Inventor of the Disposable Culture: King Camp Gillette 1855-1932 (Short Lives)
TOO MUCH MONEY; TOO LITTLE TIME
Undue Influence: The Epic Battle for the Johnson & Johnson Fortune
Fortune's Children
House of Dreams: The Bingham Family of Louisville
American Empress: The Life and Times of Marjorie Merriweather Post
American Empress: The Life and Times of Marjorie Merriweather Post
Poor Little Rich Kids! Gloria Vanderbilt was rich and miserable. The Bingham Family of Louisville (Newspapers) were dysfunctional. The battle over the Johnson and Johnson fortune was a classic soap opera right out of the headlines(the old man married his housekeeper who spent most of his money decorating their marble mausaleum and spent the rest on lawyers); Marjorie Merriwether Post inherited the Post Toasties fortune at age 27, then went on to create General Foods and marry four times.
RETAIL GIANTS
All of these material goods were useless without a Sales and Distribution System. Enter: F.W. Woolworth; JC Penney; Sears and Roebuck. Curiously, while backstabbing and double dealing were the status quo of the Founders, the most sucessful retailers practiced The Golden rule.
Creating American Institution (Studies in Entrepreneurship)
Historic Sears, Roebuck and Co. Catalog Plant (IL) (Images of America)
The Wal-Mart Effect: How the World's Most Powerful Company Really Works--and How It's Transforming the American Economy
The Marshall Fields: The Evolution of an American Business Dynasty
Land of Desire: Merchants, Power, and the Rise of a New American Culture
Carson Pirie Scott: Louis Sullivan and the Chicago Department Store (Chicago Architecture and Urbanism)
PHILANTHROPY AND THE PUBLIC GOOD
Without Andrew Carnegie, we would have no public library system. The Rockefeller Brothers foundation spent hundreds of millions on social issues.
Mellons, Fricks, Vanderbilts, Dukes, all contributed their names and reputations to Great Universities: Carnegie-Mellon, Vanderbilt University; Duke University. Whether this Largesse was a reaction to their guilt at having created a demand for their products, or a genuine interest in society, only the Donors can say.
The Foundation: A Great American Secret; How Private Wealth is Changing the World
Charity, Philanthropy, and Civility in American History
Great Fortune: The Epic of Rockefeller Center
HOW THE OTHER HALF LIVED
The very rich didn't have houses; they had castles. Even their summer homes were gigantic. From the Florida homes of Marjorie Meriwether Post and Henry Flagler to the Newport 'Cottages' of the Vanderbilts....to Henry Fricks museum-house to the Largest Private Residence in America, Biltmore in North Carolina.James Deering's "Vizcaya" on Biscayne Bay; King Gillette's Castle on the Connecticut River: the Palmer House in Chicago: the Rich knew how to live.
Old Florida: Florida's Magnificent Homes, Gardens and Vintage Attractions
Biltmore Estate (Images of America: North Carolina)
National Geographic Guide to Americas Great Houses (National Geographic Guide to America's Great Houses)
Private Newport: At Home and In the Garden
Mrs. Astor's New York: Money and Social Power in a Gilded Age
Vizcaya: An American Villa and Its Makers (Penn Studies in Landscape Architecture)
Chicago's Grand Hotels: The Palmer House, The Drake, and The Hilton Chicago (IL)
Sarasota (FL) (Images of America)
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COAL, OIL AND STEEL
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Follow the Money!
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BABY OIL, SCOTCH TAPE,HERSHEY BARS, POST-TOASTIES,SHAVERS
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TOO MUCH MONEY; TOO LITTLE TIME
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RETAIL GIANTS
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PHILANTHROPY AND THE PUBLIC GOOD
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