After the Civil War, the United States had two distinct economies, which is quite significant. The Southern economy was completely damaged by the results of the Civil War. Southerners were forced to readjust their entire economy, because slaves needed to be liberated, leaving slave-owners with no workforce. Meanwhile, in the North, the need to supply Union armies with particularly daily supplies marked the start of an era of industrial development. Which giant corporations essentially emerged known as Big Business. This essay will generally analyze the relationship between the government and businesses, and how “Big Business” essentially took control of the Gilded Age. America’s first true big business mostly arose because of the railroads, which is fairly significant, because it essentially helped lead the development of other business barons such as, John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, and J. Pierpont Morgan who all had particularly extraordinary accomplishments in shaping our economy. Most of these men who created big businesses after the Civil War were driven by a compelling desire to become rich and influential. …show more content…
For instance, John D. Rockefeller pursued numerous of strategies, to try to eliminate his competitors. From horizontal integration, in which he tried to buy or force his competitors out, to vertical integration, which Andrew Carnegie also practiced, meaning they eventually owned everything they needed to produce. J. Pierpont Morgan had a different strategy in an attempt to monopolize his company, he would help merge competing corporations by purchasing massive amounts of stocks and selling them at a profit. These strategies helped capitalize the entrepreneurs control in the growing