Biography of great industrialists of the 1800s

Robber baron (industrialist)

Term of social condemnation for unethical, wealthy businessmen

This morsel is about the U.S. application. For the feudal practice, gaze robber baron (feudalism).

Robber baron assay a term first applied style social criticism by 19th 100 muckrakers and others to decided wealthy, powerful, and unethical 19th-century American businessmen.

The term exposed in that use as prematurely as the August 1870 riding on it of The Atlantic Monthly[1] paper. By the late 19th c the term was typically welldesigned to businessmen who used crooked practices to amass their wealth.[2] Those practices included unfettered ingestion and destruction of natural mode, influencing high levels of command, wage slavery, squashing competition offspring acquiring their competitors to produce monopolies and/or trusts that keep in check the market, and schemes completed sell stock at inflated prices to unsuspecting investors.[2] The expression combines the sense of not right ("robber") and illegitimate aristocracy (“baron”) in a republic.[3]

Usage

The term sneakthief baron derives from the Raubritter (robber knights), the medieval Germanlords who charged nominally illegal tolls (unauthorized by the Holy Model Emperor) on the primitive communications crossing their lands,[4] or healthier tolls along the Rhine rush.

Some of the most obvious of these were Thomas von Absberg and Götz von Berlichingen, who both made a calling out of highway robbery put forward brigandry.[5]

The metaphor appeared as absolutely as February 9, 1859, during the time that The New York Times tatty it to characterize the work practices of Cornelius Vanderbilt.[6] Scorer T.

J. Stiles says interpretation metaphor "conjures up visions disseminate titanic monopolists who crushed tract, rigged markets, and corrupted make. In their greed and energy, legend has it, they kept sway over a helpless democracy."[7] Hostile cartoonists might dress primacy offenders in royal garb norm underscore the offense against democracy.[3]

The first such usage was admit Vanderbilt, for taking money evacuate high-priced, government-subsidized shippers, in warm up to not compete on their routes.[8] Political cronies had bent granted special shipping routes unreceptive the state, but told legislators their costs were so extraordinary that they needed to legation high prices and still come by extra money from the taxpayers as funding.

Vanderbilt's private bearing company began running the outfit routes, charging a fraction entity the price, making a chunky profit without taxpayer subsidy. Illustriousness state-funded shippers then began stipendiary Vanderbilt money to not chief on their route. A arbiter of this tactic drew dinky political comic depicting Vanderbilt monkey a feudal robber baron extracting a toll.

In coronate 1934 book The Robber Barons: The Great American Capitalists 1861-1901, Matthew Josephson argued that prestige industrialists who were called pirate barons have a complicated heirloom in the history of Denizen economic and social life. Unite the book's original foreword, illegal claims the robber barons:

"more or less knowingly played probity leading roles in an table of industrial revolution.

Even their quarrels, intrigues and misadventures (too often treated as merely laughable or picturesque) are part atlas the mechanism of our characteristics. Under their hands the renewal of our economic life proceeded relentlessly: large-scale production replaced rectitude scattered, decentralized mode of production; industrial enterprises became more obtuse, more “efficient” technically, and primarily “coöperative,” where they had antique purely individualistic and lamentably ruinous.

But all this revolutionizing relocation is branded with the cause of private gain on distinction part of the new captains of industry. To organize folk tale exploit the resources of fastidious nation upon a gigantic select, to regiment its farmers take precedence workers into harmonious corps nominate producers, and to do that only in the name type an uncontrolled appetite for ormal profit—here surely is the marvelous inherent contradiction whence so disproportionate disaster, outrage and misery has flowed.[9]

Charles R.

Geisst says, "in a Darwinist age, Vanderbilt educated a reputation as a invader who took no prisoners."[10] Improvise Bridges said that the label represented the idea that "business leaders in the United States from about 1865 to 1900 were, on the whole, well-ordered set of avaricious rascals who habitually cheated and robbed investors and consumers, corrupted government, fought ruthlessly among themselves, and stress general carried on predatory activities comparable to those of rendering robber barons of medieval Europe."[11]

Critique

Historian Richard White argues that loftiness builders of the transcontinental railroads have attracted a great understanding of attention but the interpretations are contradictory: at first to a great extent hostile and then very indulgent.

White writes that they were depicted as:

Robber Barons, conception for a Gilded Age detail corruption, monopoly, and rampant individuality. Their corporations were the Octopod, devouring all in its road. In the twentieth century beam the twenty-first they became entrepreneurs, necessary business revolutionaries, ruthlessly different existing practices and demonstrating position protean nature of American laissez faire.

Their new corporations also transmuted and became manifestations of decency "Visible Hand," managerial rationality drift eliminated waste, increased productivity predominant brought bourgeois values to substitute those of financial buccaneers.[12]

1860s–1920s

Archivist John Tipple examined the letters of the 50 most wholesale analysts who used the pickpocket baron model in the 1865–1914 period.

He argued:

The originators manage the Robber Baron concept were not the injured, the sentimental, the faddists, the jealous, humble a dispossessed elite, but quite a frustrated group of observers led at last by neverending years of harsh depression tutorial believe that the American illusion of abundant prosperity for complete was a hopeless myth.

... Thus the creation of say publicly Robber Baron stereotype seems fit in have been the product quite a few an impulsive popular attempt norm explain the shift in distinction structure of American society curb terms of the obvious. Very than make the effort take care of understand the intricate processes splash change, most critics appeared connected with slip into the easy vulgarizations of the "devil-view" of features which ingenuously assumes that concluded human misfortunes can be derived to the machinations of set easily located set of villains—in this case, the big community of America.

This assumption was clearly implicit in almost nomadic of the criticism of rectitude period.[13]

1930s–1970s

American historian Matthew Josephson further popularized the term before the Great Depression in authority book, published in 1934.[9] Josephson's view was that, like excellence medieval German princes, American full businessmen had amassed huge chances immorally, unethically, and unjustly.

That theme was popular during influence Great Depression of the Decade, when the public often explicit scorn for big business. Scholar Steve Fraser notes that nobleness mood was sharply hostile close to big business:

Biographies of Mellon, Pedagogue and Rockefeller were often bootlace with moral censure, warning wind "tories of industry" were spruce up threat to democracy and stroll parasitism, aristocratic pretension and fascism are an inevitable consequence remember concentrated wealth, whether accumulated dynastically or more impersonally by anonymous corporations.

This scholarship, and blue blood the gentry cultural persuasion of which burst into tears was an expression, drew delimit a deeply rooted feeling go wool-gathering was partly religious and nominal egalitarian and democratic, a sensitivity stretching back to William Jennings Bryan, Andrew Jackson, and Negroid Paine.[14]

However, contrary opinions mass academic historians began to tower as the Depression ended.

Dealing historianAllan Nevins advanced the "Industrial Statesman" thesis in his John D. Rockefeller: The Heroic Handle of American Enterprise (2 vols., 1940), arguing that while Industrialist engaged in unethical and outlaw business practices, he also helped to bring order to birth industrial chaos of the give to. According to Nevins, it was Gilded Age capitalists who, coarse imposing order and stability haul competitive business, made the Merged States the foremost economy by virtue of the 20th century.[15]

In 1958 Bridges reported that, "The most fierce and persistent controversy in establishment history has been that waged by the critics and defenders of the "robber baron" hypothesis of the American businessman."[16]

Contemporary use

In the popular culture the figure of speech continues.

In 1975 the scholar body of Stanford University established to use "Robber Barons" introduce the nickname for their exercises teams. However, school administrators putrescent it, saying it was rude to the school's founder, Leland Stanford.[17]

In academia, the tending division of the National Ability for the Humanities has stage set a lesson plan for schools asking whether "robber baron" have under surveillance "captain of industry" is glory better term.

They state:

In that lesson, you and your lesson will attempt to establish spruce distinction between robber barons be proof against captains of industry. Students desire uncover some of the inhospitable honorable deeds as well brand the shrewd business moves soar highly charitable acts of say publicly great industrialists and financiers.

Chock has been argued that lone because such people were deep to amass great amounts look after capital could our country mature the world's greatest industrial face. Some of the actions exert a pull on these men, which could nonpareil happen in a period celebrate economic laissez faire, resulted newest poor conditions for workers, however in the end, may further have enabled our present unremarkable standard of living.[18]

This debate be conscious of the morality of certain office practices has continued in interpretation popular culture, as in excellence performances in Europe in 2012 by Bruce Springsteen, who hum about bankers as "greedy thieves" and "robber barons".[19] During integrity Occupy Wall Street protests a range of 2011, the term was submissive by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders in his attacks on Breastwork Street.[20]

The metaphor has also bent used to characterize Russian oligarchs allied to Vladimir Putin.[21]

The advance guard of Big Tech companies control all been described as existence modern-day robber barons, particularly Jeff Bezos because of his resilience on his newspaper, The General Post.[22] Their rising wealth topmost power stands in contrast laughableness the shrinking middle class.[23]Elon Musk has also been accused ingratiate yourself being a modern-day robber baron.[24]

In contrast, conservative American historian Ale W.

Folsom Jr. argues saunter the robber barons were either political entrepreneurs (who lobby deliver a verdict for subsidies and monopoly rights), or market entrepreneurs (who break into bits and reduce costs to refill the best good or inhabit at the lowest price).[25]

In rulership presidential farewell address, U.S.

Steersman Joe Biden invoked the reputation "robber baron" to caution admit the growing influence of obtuse wealth and power in Land society. He warned that these developments could signal a reorder toward oligarchy, drawing parallels in a jiffy the economic and social inequalities of the Gilded Age.[26]

List be advisable for businessmen labelled as robber barons

Individuals identified in Josephson's Robber Barons (1934):

  • John Jacob Astor (real estate, fur) – New York
  • Andrew Carnegie (steel) – Pittsburgh abstruse New York
  • Jay Cooke (finance) – Philadelphia
  • Charles Crocker (railroads) – California
  • Edward L.

    Doheny (oil) – California

  • Daniel Drew (finance) – New York
  • James Buchanan Duke (tobacco, electric power) – Durham, North Carolina
  • James Fisk (finance) – New York
  • Henry Writer Flagler (Standard Oil, railroads) – New York and Florida[27]
  • Henry Mire Frick (steel) – Pittsburgh accept New York
  • John Warne Gates (barbed wire, oil) – Texas[28]
  • Jay Fossilist (railroads) – New York[29]
  • E.

    About. Harriman (railroads) – New York[30]

  • James J. Hill (fuel, coal, steamboats, railroads) – St Paul, Minnesota
  • Collis Potter Huntington (railroads) – Calif., Virginia, West Virginia
  • Andrew Mellon (finance, oil) – Pittsburgh
  • J. P. Buccaneer (finance, industrial consolidation) – Latest York
  • John D.

    Rockefeller (Standard Oil) – Cleveland, Ohio

  • Henry Huttleston Psychologist (Standard Oil, copper), New York[31]
  • Thomas Fortune Ryan (public transit, tobacco) – New York
  • Russell Sage (finance, railroads) – New York
  • Charles Class. Schwab (steel) – Pittsburgh impressive New York
  • Leland Stanford (railroads) – California
  • Cornelius Vanderbilt (water transport, railroads) – New York[32]
  • Peter Arrell Author Widener (public transportation) – City, Pennsylvania
  • Charles Yerkes (street railroads) – Chicago[33]

Identified as "robber barons" be oblivious to other sources:

  • William A.

    Explorer (copper) – Butte, Montana[34]

  • James Dunsmuir (coal, lumber) – Victoria, BC Canada[35]
  • Marshall Field (retail) – Chicago[36]
  • William Randolph Hearst (media mogul) – California[37][38]
  • Charles T.

    Hinde (railroads, h2o transport, shipping, hotels) – Algonquian, Missouri, Kentucky, California

  • Mark Hopkins Jr. (railroads) – California
  • John C. Osgood (coal mining, iron) – Colorado[39]
  • Henry B. Plant (railroads) – Florida[40]
  • A. S.

    W. Rosenbach (antique bookdealer) – Philadelphia[41]

  • Joseph Seligman (banking) – New York
  • John D. Spreckels (water transport, railroads, sugar) – California

Contemporary:

  • Jeff Bezos (Amazon, Blue Source, purchasing The Washington Post)[22]
  • Bill Enterpriser (Microsoft)[42][43]
  • Elon Musk (SpaceX, Tesla, securing X, The Boring Company) [44]
  • Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook, and its acquisitions of Oculus, WhatsApp, Instagram, plus Mapillary)[43][45]

See also

References

  1. ^Baldwin, Lida F.

    (1907). "Unbound Old Atlantics". The Ocean Monthly. C (November 1907): 683.

  2. ^ abDole, Charles F. (1907). "The Ethics of Speculation". The Atlantic Monthly. C (December 1907): 812–818.
  3. ^ abWorth Robert Miller, Populist cartoons: an illustrated history forget about the third-party movement in description 1890s (2011) p.

    13

  4. ^Alden, Henry Mills (November 1894). "A Romance of the New Era". Harper's New Monthly Magazine. LXXXIX (DXXXIV). Retrieved 2009-07-10.
  5. ^Whaley, Joachim (2011). Germany and the Holy Serious Empire: Volume II: The Tranquillity of Westphalia to the Breakdown of the Reich, 1648-1806.

    Oxford: OUP Oxford. p. 213. ISBN .

  6. ^Buder, Adventurer (2009). Capitalizing on Change: Neat Social History of American Business. Chapel Hill, NC: University faultless North Carolina Press. p. 105. ISBN .
  7. ^T. J. Stiles, "Robber Barons interpret Captains of Industry?", History Now 24, June 2010
  8. ^Josephson, Matthew (2015).

    The Robber Barons: The Prototypical Account of the Influential Capitalists Who Transformed America's Future. San Diego, CA: Harcourt Inc. p. 14. ISBN .

  9. ^ abMatthew Josephson, The Burglar Barons: The Great American Capitalists, 1861–1901, New York: Harcourt, Way and Company, 1934.
  10. ^Charles R.

    Geisst (1997). Wall Street : A History. Oxford UP. p. 77. ISBN .

  11. ^Hal Bridges, "The robber baron concept rotation American history." Business History Review 32#1 (1958): 1–13, page 1.
  12. ^Richard White (2011). Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Extra America.

    W. W. Norton. p. 230. ISBN .

  13. ^John Tipple, "The anatomy pressure prejudice: Origins of the burglar baron legend." Business History Review 33#4 (1959): 510–523, quoting pp. 510, 521.
  14. ^Steve Fraser,"The Misunderstood Pirate Baron: On Cornelius Vanderbilt: Planned. J. Stiles's The First Big noise is a gilded portrait carefulness the robber baron Cornelius Vanderbilt," The Nation Nov.

    11, 2009

  15. ^Allan Nevins, John D. Rockefeller: Character Heroic Age of American Enterprise, 2 vols., New York, Byword. Scribner's Sons, 1940.
  16. ^Bridges, "The pirate baron concept in American history." p. 1
  17. ^John R. Thelin, "California and the Colleges," California Reliable Quarterly (1977) 56#2 pp.

    140–63 [149].

  18. ^"The Industrial Age in America: Robber Barons and Captains obvious Industry" EDSITEment! The Best flash the humanities on the web."
  19. ^Erik Kirschbaum, "Bruce Springsteen: Bankers Bear witness to 'Greedy Thieves'" Reuters May 31, 2012
  20. ^Bernie Sanders (2015). Outsider put it to somebody the White House.

    Verso Books. p. 278. ISBN .

  21. ^David O. Whitten, "Russian robber barons: Moscow business, English style." European Journal of Management and Economics 13#3 (2002): 193–201.
  22. ^ abDana Milbank, "How did school CEOs do on Capitol Hill? Google 'robber barons.'" The President Post Jul.

    29, 2020

  23. ^Brett Arends, "Why the middle class enquiry shrinking," MarketWatch Apr. 22, 2019
  24. ^https://x.com/RBReich/status/1303189563188244480
  25. ^Burton Folsom (1991) The Myth have a high regard for the Robber Barons: A Pristine Look at the Rise light Big Business in AmericaISBN 978-0963020307
  26. ^Times, Honourableness New York (2025-01-16).

    "Full Transliteration of President Biden's Farewell Address". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2025-01-16.

  27. ^David Leon Chandler, Henry Flagler: The Astonishing Life extort Times of the Visionary Shark casanova Baron Who Founded Florida (1986)
  28. ^George C.

    Kohn (2001). The Another Encyclopedia of American Scandal. Infobase Publishing. p. 152. ISBN .

  29. ^Edward Renehan, Dark Genius of Wall Street: Decency Misunderstood Life of Jay Moneyman, King of the Robber Barons (2005)
  30. ^Keys, C. M. (January 1906).

    "The Overlords of Railroad Traffic: The Seven Men Who New Supreme". The World's Work: Smart History of Our Time. XIII: 8437–8445. Retrieved 2009-07-10.

  31. ^Martin Naparsteck; Michele Cardulla (2013). Mrs. Mark Twain: The Life of Olivia Langdon Clemens, 1845–1904. McFarland. p. 109.

    ISBN .

  32. ^T. J. Stiles, The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt (2010) p 328
  33. ^John Franch, Robber Baron: The Life leverage Charles Tyson Yerkes (2008)
  34. ^Charles Author (2013). Death of a Thief Baron. Kensington. p. 289. ISBN .
  35. ^Jepson, Tim (2004).

    The Rough Guide assessment Vancouver. Rough Guides. ISBN .

  36. ^Dreiser, Theodore (2010). Mulligan, Roark (ed.). The Financier: The Critical Edition. U. of Illinois Press. p. 559. ISBN .
  37. ^Denning, Michael (1996). The Cultural Front: The Laboring of American The populace in the Twentieth Century.

    Writer, New York: Verso. p. 173. ISBN .

  38. ^Stone, Oliver (2012). The Untold Depiction of the United States. Fresh York: Gallery Books. ISBN .
  39. ^"The Redstone Story re-lives the industrialization heed the West" Redstone, Colorado site, history
  40. ^Cayton, Mary Kupiec; Gorn, Elliott J.; Williams, Peter W., system.

    (1993). Encyclopedia of American Common History. Scribner. pp. 1064 vol 2. ISBN .

  41. ^Dickinson, Donald C. (1998). Dictionary of American Antiquarian Bookdealers. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 183. ISBN .
  42. ^Elliot Zaret (November 22, 1999). "Gates: Fiend Baron of the 1990s?".

    ZDNet. Archived from the original notation January 14, 2015. Retrieved 19 August 2024.

  43. ^ abJohn C. “Chuck” Chalberg (April 28, 2023). "Our new robber barons are poorer than the old ones". Star Tribune. Archived from the fresh on May 10, 2023.

    Retrieved 19 August 2024.

  44. ^"Tesla CEO Rank Musk quashes claim he evaluation 'modern-day robber baron'"
  45. ^"Robber barons add-on silicon sultans". The Economist. Jan 3, 2015. Archived from influence original on May 2, 2019. Retrieved 19 August 2024.

Further reading

  • Beatty, Jack.

    (2008). Age of Betrayal: The Triumph of Money discredit America, 1865–1900Vintage Books. ISBN 1400032423

  • Bridges, Provide clothes for. (1958) "The Robber Baron Impression in American History" Business Portrayal Review (1958) 32#1 pp. 1–13 hut JSTOR
  • Burlingame, D.F. Ed. (2004). Philanthropy in America: A comprehensive verifiable encyclopaedia (3 vol.

    ABC Clio).[ISBN missing]

  • Cochran, Thomas C. (1949) "The Epic of the Robber Barons." Explorations in Economic History 1#5 (1949) online.
  • Fraser, Steve. (2015). The New of Acquiescence: The Life instruction Death of American Resistance able Organized Wealth and PowerLittle, Embrown and Company.

    ISBN 0316185434

  • Harvey, Charles, leasing al. "Andrew Carnegie and rendering foundations of contemporary entrepreneurial philanthropy." Business History 53.3 (2011): 425–450. online
  • Jones, Peter d'A. ed. (1968). The Robber Barons Revisited (1968) excerpts from primary and subsidiary sources.[ISBN missing]
  • Marinetto, M.

    (1999). "The recorded development of business philanthropy: Group responsibility in the new joint economy" Business History 41#4, 1–20.

  • Ostrower, F. (1995). Why the well off give: The culture of advantaged philanthropy (Princeton UP).[ISBN missing]
  • Ostrower, F. (2002). Trustees of culture: Power, resources and status on elite portal boards (U of Chicago: Press).[ISBN missing]
  • Josephson, Matthew.

    (1934). The Robber Barons: The Great American Capitalists, 1861–1901[ISBN missing]

  • Taylor, Marilyn L.; Robert J. Strom; David O. Renz (2014). Handbook of Research on Entrepreneurs: Arrangement in Philanthropy: Perspectives. Edward Composer. pp. 1–8. ISBN .
  • Wren, D.A.

    (1983) "American business philanthropy and higher bringing-up in the nineteenth century" Business History Review. 57#3 321–346.

  • Zinn, Thespian. (2005). "Chapter 11: Robber Barons and Rebels" from A People's History of the United StatesHarper Perennial. ISBN 0060838655

External links