The robber barons book. The Robber Barons by Matthew Josephson 2022-10-13
The robber barons book
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The term "robber baron" was coined in the late 19th century to describe a group of powerful and wealthy industrialists who were seen as using unethical and manipulative tactics to amass their fortunes. These men, known as the "robber barons," were often criticized for their lack of social responsibility and their ruthless pursuit of wealth.
One of the most well-known robber barons was John D. Rockefeller, who founded Standard Oil and became one of the wealthiest men in history. Rockefeller is often credited with pioneering the concept of the modern corporation, but he also faced criticism for his business practices, including using his vast wealth and influence to crush competition and secure favorable deals with railroads and other businesses.
Another robber baron was Andrew Carnegie, who built a fortune in the steel industry through a combination of technological innovation and aggressive business tactics. Carnegie is known for his philanthropy, but he also faced criticism for his treatment of workers and his role in the Homestead Strike of 1892, which resulted in violent clashes between workers and Pinkerton guards.
Other notable robber barons include J.P. Morgan, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and Henry Ford. These men were all known for their tremendous wealth and influence, but they were also criticized for their lack of concern for the well-being of their employees and their disregard for the negative effects their businesses had on the environment and society.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the robber barons were a controversial and polarizing figure. Some saw them as visionary entrepreneurs who were responsible for the rapid industrialization and economic growth of the United States, while others saw them as greedy and ruthless capitalists who were more interested in personal gain than in the welfare of the general public.
Despite their controversial reputation, the robber barons played a significant role in shaping the modern economy and continue to be remembered as important figures in American history.
The Robber Barons by Matthew Josephson
The Robber Barons details the history of a small class of men who arose at the time of the American Civil War and swept into power. In this regard, I think the book could have gotten a final star from me if it had attempted to do less, but more with greater exposition and detail. Hard to understand how this book was ever published. I personally found this book extremely educational. It depends chiefly on two words, industry and frugality; that is, waste neither time nor money, but make the best use of both. They were aggressive, and in important crises, nearly all of them tended to act without those established principles associated with the common people of the community.
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Robber Barons Books
Josephson tells some thrilling tales of men struggling to lay track ahead of their competitors, engaging in bloody battles over a railroad line or its cargo, ruining their own health by empire-building, manufacturing fortunes out of nothing by a cunning process of borrowing and inflating. The market entrepreneurs helped lead to the rise of the U. For the people of the Reformed Church as for the Jews money was long ago the sole means to power. Some readers seem to be perturbed by Josephson's largely negative view of these men, and have called him a Marxist and the like. So many sayings of the time show how "among the Reformed, the greater their zeal, the greater was their inclination to trade and industry, as holding idleness unlawful.
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The Myth of the Robber Barons by Burton W. Folsom Jr.
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The way to wealth, if you desire it, is as plain as the way to market. Geisst says, "in a Darwinist age, Vanderbilt developed a reputation as a plunderer who took no prisoners. A new class of business leaders was born, dominating their sectors of the nation's ever-expanding industrial base. In the first thirty years of his career, he amassed a fleet of thirty steamships before transitioning to the railroad. This is a very well researched piece that covers an enormous subject and period of history. Like other industrialists of the era, Morgan engaged in questionable business practices to eliminate competition and increase profit.
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The Robber Barons by Matthew Josephson, Paperback
Philanthropist: A person who promotes the welfare of others generally through large donations of money to charitable causes. It is so applicable to today that I am writing a review on it. At the same time, many of them showed qualities of courage. Josephson could have devoted more space to the union struggle in the time period he looked at but it is still a powerful book, especially in the time of huge bailouts, "too big to fail" corporations, and historic revisionism. And though it was not true that Calvin had introduced usury, as so many suppose, he had recognized its existence more candidly than the Catholic Church; and, as shown by R. In the Mellon chapter, the author describes how Andrew Mellon an entrepreneur in oil and aluminum became Secretary of Treasury under Coolidge.
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The Robber Barons: The Great American Capitalists 1861 1901 by Matthew Josephson
Included are the stories of Rockefeller, Morgan, Vanderbilt, Carnegie, Harriman, Gould and Frick. The book is pretty uneven, some sections are dreadfully dull and endlessly repetitive, while others zip by like lightning. First published in 1934 at the height of the Great Depression, this is a damning look at the men who arose around the Civil War and after and how they basically looted the country with government give-aways of land and tax breaks railroads. Franklin, the historic Yankee, the legendary Self- made Man, owed his success as a printer as much to his strict attention to new machinery studied in London as to his good and prudent business management; just as in journalism he owed his success to enterprise in the current of new ideas. In a fascinating narrative, mixing social, economic, and political history, Josephson shows that under the command of these industry titans, the country progressed from a mainly agrarian-mercantile society to an economy propelled predominantly by mass production. The definitive book on the rise and power of early American capitalists, The Robber Barons examines the careers of such masters of finance and industry as J. The Cultural Front: The Laboring of American Culture in the Twentieth Century.
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Robber baron (industrialist)
These robber barons, as were their medieval counterparts, were the dominating figures of an aggressive economic age. Perhaps a new opportunity to right the ship will emerge in this new decade. Completely separately, the dollar values that are set forth on some of the transactions are staggering; particularly if you transform them into today's dollars and realize that a single person was often behind the bulk of the financing. Were these men philanthropists that improved society or monopolists that controlled prices for their benefit? I enjoyed the tremendous depths this book plumbed, but disliked the quick gloss of effects to unions, riots, labor disputes, and just the general effect of the emassing of riches on the everyday man. As in the case of Franklin, so in the other early Self-made Men of the young Republic we may study the naked process of change from the early stages of industrialism to the more advanced. There are fascinating characters here: Daniel Drew, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jay Gould, Jay Cooke, John D. Thus, under the lax political institutions, society would be wholly directed by interest, rather than by outworn traditions, or by the appetites of autocrats.
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Robber Barons
In order to secure my character and credit as a tradesman, I took care not only to be in reality industrious and frugal, but to avoid the appearance to the contrary. . By depicting America in such matter of fact terms, this title lends itself to a study on human nature itself. Among the New Englanders, for a time, and among the widely scattered Scotch-Irish, Calvinism was dominant and its influence was widespread in nearly all the colonies. Maybe, but you should remember that the so-called robber barons were christened and criticized by turn-of-the-century muckrakers with axes to grind and 20th-century Marxists who regarded all capitalists as criminals. In office, Mellon was the first American to practice supply-side economics. This Yankee was avid of novelty and invention, free of prejudices, ingenious mechanically, skillful with his hands, quick of wit.
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Read Download The Robber Barons PDF
So, apparently, have a lot of fans that he received a round of applause at an early December New York Times conference. Strange typos and errors through the Kindle version I read didn't help distract from what is a consistently boring book written about very exciting times. Josephson could have devoted more space to the union struggle in the t Josephson's book is important mainly in proving that the so-called captains of industry were financial pirates who built their empires on the backs of impoverished miners, railroad workers, foundry workers, and countless others. But judgments of character are fallible and, as innovation ripens into fashion, can be swayed by moralistic appeals. Historians have argued what titles should be attributed to the monopolists and industrialists of the era. Over great regions of the country men still worked for a "livelihood" rather than for "money. Their rise does have something in common with that of their pre-1914 predecessors.
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