How Did Historians Use Robber Barons Dbq

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In the stage following the Civil War, Industrialization had many leaders. These leaders helped boom the growth of the economy and the industry in the United States. As historians have looked closer at the people who helped America become one of the leading industrial powers of the world, they’ve come to question the honesty of how these leaders really obtained their fortunes. The industrial and business leaders of the 1865-1900, also known as “Robber Barons, used various methods in order to build up their own wealth and power. These would use mechanisms that would go against the public population more often than not and those that would go near extremes. Historians have delved into the works of multiple men who have looked acceptable on …show more content…

Rockefeller, but were really these false “robber barons” looking to improve their outside image. They had a lack of empathy for those not being their big business partners, allowing them to acquire and maintain substantial amounts of money. In a first hand interview with “Robber Baron” William H. Vanderbilt, when asked “... But don’t you run it (the railroads) for the public benefit?”, Vanderbilt replies saying “The public be damned. [...] I don’t take any stock in this silly nonsense about working for anybody’s good but our own” (Doc 1). These few statements demonstrate how Vanderbilt and many other wealthy business people thought of the average person. Any proclamations from this document are indisputable as they came directly from the mouth of Vanderbilt himself the Chicago Daily News. He continually alleges that they would have cut out …show more content…

He uses this Charles Darwin attitude of “survival of the fittest”, saying that “...law may be sometimes hard for the individual, it is best for the race, because it insures the survival of the fittest in every department [...] essential for the future progress of the race” (Doc 3). Carnegie believes that him and other wealthy beings deserve to have more fortune because they worked harder than anyone else for it, everyone has that equal opportunity.. In addition, anyone else who aspires to work as much as they do can earn just as much money as they