In the 1860s Cornelius Vanderbilt was aware of the big growth in the future of transportation. He believed it would soon not be by water, but by railway. That’s when Cornelius had an idea on how to continue the growth of his businesses. Vanderbilt was a robber baron who used ruthless business practices to enrich himself. In 1863, Cornelius began to transfer his interests from shipping into railroads.
Railroads affected every major United States industry including coal, oil, lumber, farm equipment, steel, grain, cotton, gas, textile factories, and California citrus. Railroad managers invented modern systems for running large scale business operations, making a model that other large corporations shadowed. The railroads created job paths that took 18 year old boys and revolved them into brakemen, engineers and conductors. John D. Rockefeller, with the railroads in the palms of his hands, was able to could supply every home in the United States with “Standard Oil” kerosene. With all of his earnings, Rockefeller bought out his competition to own most of the oil refineries in the United States.
He seeked another way to gain power and this was by railroads. Vanderbilt sold everything he had and invested it into railroads. This was the next big thing in America. The railroad transportation method exploded and everybody was seeking to do it. So Vanderbilt began
Cornelius Vanderbilt, and John D. Rockefeller are both labeled as robber barons. Robber barons is a term that means that they stole and were granted special rights, so that they could create monopolies in their fields. This concept is completely wrong though, since both Vanderbilt and Rockefeller worked hard to earn everything they received. Rockefeller and Vanderbilt were both businessmen who made wise business decisions, and created deals that would benefit them. Vanderbilt was a business manager for a ferry entrepreneur, who was breaking the law so that their customers could receive cheaper fares.
He then set up a mega trust with Rockefeller, who was in the gas and oil industry, JP Morgan, who was a banker, and Vanderbilt, who was high up in the railroad industry. He took control of much of the economy by putting other gas, oil, and railroad
These businesses became extremely wealthy because of their ability to serve the people with ease of living. Electricity, though already a pretty big part of most people’s lives at this point, also became a major part of transportation. Some automation was introduced into train systems with routes. Operators became a less necessary role in train travel because routes could be set from before a train reaches a turning point. Refrigeration in storage and shipping became a major part using meat, milk, and other cold
Rockefeller was also one of the most successful wealthy Gilded Age entrepreneurs. Although Rockefeller did make a name for himself in the oil industry,supplying the U.S with oil, and creating the Standard Oil Company;his road to power was paved with the pain and suffering of others due to his malicious behavior. He should be remembered as a Robber Baron because of his attempts at monopoly, malicious behavior to those who stood in his way, and especially the treatment of his workers in order to get the wealth he desired. J.D. Rockefeller used tactics such as vertical integration, using rebates to transport his oil for cheaper prices, and using ruthless methods to eliminate the competition.
He inspired Hon Elijah Muhammad, Martin Luther King Jr., and even Malcolm X through his philosophy. In an attempt for the African American people to rely solely on themselves, he set up the Negro Factories Corporation so that he could produce everything a nation would/could. Marcus Garvey founded the Negro Factories Corporation in 1920, he sold the stock to African Americans and accumulated one million dollars for his task. Marcus Garvey’s quintessential dream for reality was for Africans to have independence from the United States, but, he wanted to go a step further and create a United States of Africa for the African people. He returned to Jamaica in 1912 and founded many more helpful businesses for the African society Marcus Garvey found inspiration from people like Hitler, Mussolini, and Sussali because of their racial pride.
For example, J.P. Morgan was in the process of making a trust with other big businesses, such as the railroad industry, to drive out competition from the market. Roosevelt knew that this was wrong and used the Sherman Anti-Trust Act as a tool to put a stop to the trust that Morgan was trying to establish (140-143). To help prevent future trusts from being formed, Teddy Roosevelt formed the Bureau of Corporations that would investigate businesses and report to Roosevelt if corporations were doing anything suspicious (144-145). Another thing that showed the progressivism of President Roosevelt was his stance on the relations between the workers and owners of businesses. In 1902, approximately 140,000 Pennsylvania coal miners went
The effects of steam engine to the industrial revolution In the eighteenth century there used to be so many new inventions and technological breakthroughs and hence new outlooks on the world. Thermometers and the bifocals were two major ones over the eighteenth century. The French revolution intensely changed the situation in France. The United States of America was about to become an independent nation. And to end all this , James Watt has invented the steam engine that was catalyzing the development of the steam locomotive, which had a big impact on society ; the steam locomotive boosted the production of businesses, transformed tight-knit small villages into huge cities, and ushered in an era of big business and production at which we