Brendan Hanlon English 303 Burrow 11/3/17 The Wealth of the Vanderbilt’s and the Disney’s In the 1900s two major families were quite popular in America. Those families were The Vanderbilt family and The Disney family. Both families were extremely wealthy, famous, and had a big impact on people’s lives around them. The Vanderbilt’s started their wealth by making a railroad service company in New York. The company crossed over America, and ended up making the Vanderbilt’s millions upon millions of dollars. Cornelius Vanderbilt started the railroad company in 1810, and by the time he died in 1877 he had made 100 million dollars (Natalie). That was just the start to the Vanderbilt fortune. The Vanderbilt’s passed the wealth down from generation …show more content…
This fortune started when Walt and his brother Roy began making cartoons as a living. Walt and Roy worked many hours in the studio coming up and brainstorming ideas for different cartoons. They failed many times but kept going and eventually came with the cartoon characters such as Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, and Minnie. He made cartoons with those characters, and he quickly became famous worldwide. “The invention of such cartoon characters as Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Minnie, and Goofy, combined with the clever use of music, sound, and folk material (as in The Three Little Pigs ), made the Disney shorts of the 1930s successful all over the world. This success led to the establishment of the hugely profitable, Disney-controlled sidelines in advertising, publishing, and merchandising. (Walt Disney Biography).” Disney quickly was on the rise. He was creating many cartoons and characters that became famous very quickly. “In 1954 Disney successfully invaded television, and by the time of his death the Disney studio had produced 21 full-length animated films, 493 short subjects, 47 live-action films, 7 True-Life Adventure features, 330 hours of Mickey Mouse Club television programs, 78 half-hour Zorro television adventures, and 280 other television shows. (Walt Disney Biography).” His fame and fortune became so much, and Disney television shows and movies became so popular they started making a theme park. In mid 1900s the theme park “Disneyland” was created and brought to California and quickly began to be one of the most popular theme parks ever created (Walt Disney Biography). Walt Disney created such a big company off just an idea he had with his brother. The company quickly spread out and became worldly famous, and now a days the company has made over a billion dollars. “The first place to look for a simple valuation of a company is the price that the stock market puts on it. Disney currently has