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Jay Gould And Robber Barons

813 Words4 Pages

In the list of the worst CEOs of all time (according to Conde Nast Portfolio), Jay Gould came in at number eight. He would be worth $71 billion dollars today and was one of the the worst robber barons in the 1800s. Jay Gould was born on May 27, 1836, in Roxbury, New York to Mary and John Gould. Jay Gould was an only child. Jay went to school at the Hobart Academy in New York, but he dropped out at the age of 16. He continued to study surveying and mathematics. While at the Hobart Academy, the principal helped him get a job as a bookkeeper for a blacksmith. In 1856, by the age of 20, he had gone into partnership with Zadock Pratt to build a tanning business in Pennsylvania. While Jay Gould is not well known today, he is the ninth richest …show more content…

The Erie Railroad War was a struggle to control the railroad between Jay Gould, his business partner Daniel Drew, and James Fisk, versus Cornelius Vanderbilt. The War between when the men began, when Cornelius Vanderbilt tried to gain control of the Erie Railroad, Cornelius the owner of the New York Central Railroad was hoping to add this to his collection of railroads he owned, even when the Erie had not been making a profit at the time. In 1867 Drew was the owner of the railroad,Drew, Fisk and Gould started to “water-down” the stock that Vanderbilt bought, making it three times what it would have cost originally. The unsuspecting Vanderbilt eventually got enraged and contacted a New York judge. The Erie war ended when Drew and vanderbilt came to a mutual deal. Drew had then advised Gould, and fisk to move along, but Gould, and fisk were able to kick out Drew, and begin running the railroad themselves. drew was pushed into semi-retirement, and vanderbilt still remained the richest man in America at the time. The Erie, a symbol of moving west crippled by enormous debt, and would not become profitable for more than 70 years. Another event that made Jay famous was …show more content…

back in the mid 1800s was the Native Americans. Since Jay Gould owned most of the railroads that were going West, and these railroads went through Indian lands and brought more people out to the West, I would expect that he had a somewhat shaky relationship with the Native American population. However, I did not read anything specifically about how they related to each

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