Why Is Cornelius Vanderbilt Get The Greatest Award

Anthony Sforza

Cornelius Vanderbilt

“I have always served the public to the best of my ability. Why? Because, like every other man, it is to my interest to do so.” This shows that Cornelius Vanderbilt should get a life time achievement award because of his inventions he has made.

In the background of his life Cornelius Vanderbilt was born on May 27, 1794 and died on January 04, 1877. Cornelius Vanderbilt quit school by age 11 and made a decision to go work with his father on a boat. By the age of 13 he light made vessels lighter. At 16 years old Cornelius Vanderbilt and given 100 dollars by his parents he went and bought a small sailing boat and he named it piragua and after that he began a freight and passenger ferrying business between

Cornelius Vanderbilt was a smart business man which caught people’s attention. He used low fares which made people use his company. Using low fares made his company sky rock threw the roof and just after 5 years he made over 25 millions dollars just from the railroad company (Gale 1). After his success he expanded the rails to the west. This was a big turning point for the railroad company, not only will it bring in more money to the company it will also have people travel farther instead of having short railroads, where they won't bring in more money and he created system spanning several states lowered costs, which increased efficiency, and sped up travel and shipment of goods (Gale 1). In 1870, Vanderbilt combined his two companies into one of the biggest corporations in American history, the New York Central and the Hudson Railroad. The new company had a stock capitalization of about $100 million. That is about 4 times as much as he made in the New York Central Station by itself

When he turned 16 he bought a small sailing boat and he named it piragua and after that he began a freight and passenger ferrying business between Staten Island and New York (Gale 1). By using cheap fares Cornelius Vanderbilt was able to expand his company. In the 1840’s Cornelius Vanderbilt had a fleet of 100 steamboats due to the income of the cheap fares he had set out. Cornelius Vanderbilt was making so much money that other companies paid to leave the Hudson River. Cornelius Vanderbilt keeping buying different steamboat companies which is called robber baron. Due to the war of 1812 Cornelius Vanderbilt had the opportunity to expand his company and he did. Cornelius had signed a contract that he could supply military forts around New York and because of the amount of money he made he was able to expand even more. He expanded to the Long Island Sound, Providence, Boston and Connecticut. Cornelius Vanderbilt also added two more steamboats to the coast to help out on trade and transporting people (Encyclopedia World). When Cornelius Vanderbilt was 40 he went down south to transport people from the East Coast to the West Coast for the Gold Rush. Cornelius Vanderbilt made over 1 millions each year he started going down south with the steam boat company (Encyclopedia World). Cornelius Vanderbilt started using canal’s across Nicaragua. The United States . In the end, he could not attract enough