Cornelius Vanderbilt: Robber Baron Or Robber Baron?

The Second Industrial age was a period of tremendous social and economic upheaval with the rise of huge corporations as well as the growing tide of workers rights reform. So called robber barons like Cornelius Vanderbilt, John D Rockefeller , and Andrew Carnegie played an extremely important role in forging the industrial powerhouse america would become.in the 20th century through their innovative but ultimately cuthroat business tactics. Cornelius Vanderbilt was an steamship and railroad tycoon popularly known as the “Commodore” and “ The Railroad King” respectively who built his empire on ruthless competition that pitted him against rivals regularly getting the better of them by cleverly controlling markets and undercutting rivals prices he was able to dominate steamship lanes for a good time until Pacific

Another man that had a tremendous effect on the american economy and structure was John D Rockefeller pioneer of horizontal integration and owner of petroleum refining giant Standard Oil he was called a robber baron because many people believed he used unethical business practices to amass his extraordinary wealth. even so Rockefeller was generally kind to his workers “Paying higher than market wages he believed it helped slash costs in the long