America’s Gilded Age was a period of sudden economic growth and it concentrated mainly on industrialization, it lasted from 1870-1890s. The Gilded Age was when immense wealth was accumulated by a few people, such as Andrew Carnegie who dominated the steel industry and John D. Rockefeller who dominated the oil industry. These two industrial leaders were known as “robber barons” especially Rockefeller because he drove out smaller businesses and he bought out all of his oil company competitions, this type of business method he undertook is known as horizontal expansion. Carnegie on the other took a different approach, he established a steel company that was “vertically integrated, meaning he controlled more than one stage of the supply chain.
The industrialist leaders were robber barons throughout the Gilded Age. The Gilded Age was a term coined by Mark Twain to label an era defined for its corporate and political greed and corruption; furthermore, monopolies created by industrial leaders grew to prosperity. For instance, John D. Rockefeller was an American businessman who dabbled in the oil industry. Rockefeller practiced horizontal integration where he would ally with, buy out, or undermine competitors to monopolize his business. This allowed him to acquire the vast majority of the oil industry thus empowering Rockefeller to control the latter by forcing his competitors into bankruptcy.
A “robber baron” is defined as one who uses immoral methods to get rich. John D. Rockefeller, king of oil and the owner of the Standard Oil Company, was known for these unscrupulous tactics. Rockefeller’s peculiar ideas of the “law of nature” in accordance with his “primitive savagery” allowed this stealthy businessman to manipulate his way to the top. Although Rockefeller’s oil monopoly attributed to the wealth of the American economy, he destroyed the morality of modest men to accomplish ultimate power and prestige making him one of the wealthiest industrialists during his time.
Was John D. Rockefeller a robber baron? I’d say so. Through ruthless business tactics and exploitation of workers, he made a fortune in his lifetime. In this paper, I’m going to be talking about said business tactics and exploitation. If you believe Rockefeller was just a good business man who donated to the poor, I hope your view will be changed by the end.
The charge about the old days of the American economy—the nineteenth century, the “Gilded Age,” the era of the “robber barons”—was that it was always beset by a cycle of boom and bust. Whatever nice runs of expansion and opportunity that did come, they always seemed to be coupled with a pretty cataclysmic depression right around the corner. Boom and bust, boom and bust—this was the necessary pattern of the American economy in its primitive state. In the US, in the modern era, all this was smoothed out.
When Cornelius Vanderbilt died he left his $100 million fortune to his son William Vanderbilt and they both had the same attitude. During the Gilded Age these big business and their owners were thought of as being Robber Barons or Captains of Industry. The poor working conditions that were provided, the corruption they led in government, and their use of child labor shows that they were Robber Barons. Children were used in labor to work a lot and most days of the week. Kids as young as 5 often worked as much as 12 to 14 hours a day for barely any pay.
American businessmen, of the 1800’s, built America to be one of the greatest superpowers in the world. To start, businessmen of the 1800s consisted of men like John D. Rockefeller, Cornelius Vanderbilt and Andrew Carnegie. Some of these men were split by how they got their money; Captains of Industry and Robber Barons. Captains of Industry were business leaders that helped the nation in a positive way. On the other hand, Robber Barons were men that shrewd capitalists, swindled the poor and benefitted for themselves.
America went through a time of industrialization in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. There were many influential people in that time such as Thomas Edison or Alexander Graham Bell. Many of these men were divided into two groups. The first was the titans of industry and the second were robber barons. Many people today wonder why Americans at that time divided these people up into these groups.
Robber barons, specifically Andrew Carnegie, an industrialist and John D. Rockefeller, a philanthropist, were the chosen, elite members of society according to the doctrine of Social Darwinism. Darwinism is when evolution occurs and the strongest organisms of an ecosystem survive and reproduce to outnumber the weaker, less fit organisms of an ecosystem. Similarly Social Darwinism follows the same concept, but in a capitalist sense of thought. Those who were able to exploit the Gilded Age’s laissez faire economy to their own benefit, like the robber barons Andrew Carnegie of Carnegie Steel and J. D. Rockefeller of Standard Oil, were the fittest members of society because they were able to survive in the grueling and ruthless free economy. By usurping all of the fresh yet unfit immigrants that were flowing into the States due to the rise of urbanization, these two men integrated these easily-manipulated people into their factories to augment their profits.
John Herbert Dillinger, an infamous Depression era American outlaw and bank robber whose legends depict him as a “social bandit”. However, what exactly is a social bandit and how did Dillinger fit in with the social bandit stereotype years after his death? The term “social bandit” is a concept noted by English historian Eric Hobsbawm which describes a tradition in peasant society of lawless men on the fringes akin to the likes of Robin Hood. Social bandits targeted the wealthy and powerful who the poor exonerated as the cause of their suffering and misfortunes.
At the end of the 19th Century, as the United States was experiencing rapid industrialization, a reconfiguration of the social order yielded opposing visions of social progress. Andrew Carnegie, wealthy businessman, and Jane Addams, founder of Chicago’s Hull House, put forward different methods to achieve such progress, where Addams focuses on creating social capital in a seemingly horizontal manner while Carnegie advocates for a top-down approach. While both of them seem to reap a sense of purpose from their attempts to improve the nation, their approaches vary depending on their vision of the composition of the population they want to uplift. First, Carnegie and Addams’ desire to improve society is partly self-serving. For Carnegie, improving society is the role of the wealthy man who, “animated by Christ’s spirit” (“Wealth”), can administer wealth for the community better than it could have for itself (“Wealth”).
The late nineteenth century was a pivotal moment in American history. During this time, the Industrial Revolution transformed the nation, railroads had dissipated all throughout the country, and economic classes began to form, separating the wealthy from the poor. One of the wealthiest men of this generation was Andrew Carnegie, a Scottish immigrant who fled to America to make millions off the railroad, oil and even steel businesses. Carnegie is considered one of the richest men in history, and even with all that wealth he decided to give back to the community. As a matter of fact, Carnegie donated most of his funds to charities, universities and libraries in his last few years.
Was Cornelius Vanderbilt a Robber Baron or Captain of Industry? A cruel businessman or an industrious leader? Henry J. Raymond believed that Vanderbilt was “a monopolist that crushed other competitors”(T.J Stiles). While he is also deemed one of America’s leading businessmen, and is also credited for helping shape the United States. His fortunes were made unfairly in some cases but his million dollar contribution to the Navy was very generous.
Captains of Industry or Robber Barons? Mr. George Pullman was considered one of the worst robber barons of the 19th century. He manipulated his workers to do everything for him and strived for success. George Pullman was the third of ten children born to James and Emily Pullman. His family had relocated to Albion, New York, in 1845 so his father could work on the Erie Canal.
Robber Barons and Captains of Industry Some might believe that the businessmen of the Gilded age are robber barons because of how some of them treated their workers and spent their money. The businessmen of the Gilded Age were captains of industry because of the impact that they made on the country. Carnegie, Rockefeller, Morgan, and Vanderbilt all have done things that can identify them as captains of industry. These businessmen gave their time and effort to help the economy grow.