Period Cornelius Vanderbilt was born around May 27, 1794 around the area of Port Richmond on Staten Island, New York. The business that he is most known for is the becoming the railroad tycoon that has help shaped society today. At a young age of 11 he dropped out of school to work for his father. Around the time he was young he gained interest in boats and began to become interested in the shipping business and started to study most aspects of the industry. When he was at the age of 16 he had made about $100 for landscaping on his father’s land and through what he had received he had purchased a sail boat and started a “passenger ferry business”1 giving people rides he would usually and/or “routinely undercut his competition”2. Around the …show more content…
time of the war of 1812 his business became hugely successful he had received a military contract to transport and provide the military with supplies. Eventually the new rise of the steamboat threatened Vanderbilt’s business due to the pricing people wanted to pay and sold his sailboat and got a job working a steamboat “ferrying passengers from New Jersey to Manhattan”3 he was still a huge success people would go to him because of the rates and new vessel that he had. Soon his ‘competitors paid him to leave the Hudson River”4. Around about the 1840’s he had been operating close to or about 100 steamboats and was worth close to 7 million dollars. He eventually moved some of his business to Central America and oversaw most of the transatlantic steamship business. 1 Biography.com Editors, http://www.biography.com/people/cornelius-vanderbilt-9515195, Bio, [N\A] 2 Ibid., paragraph 4 3 Ibid., paragraph 5 4 Ibid., paragraph 5 Around the 1860’s had turned his focus from his shipping business to the railroad industry “which was entering a period of great expansion.”5 He had gained power of many railway lines operating between New York and Chicago and “had integrated an interregional system of railroads throughout several states”6, he improved the Railroad service by lowering costs and improving service for their customers.
“After a year in the railroad industry Vanderbilt reportedly made 25 million.”7 Sometime after he expanded his the company to the westward side of the U.S gaining Michigan southern railway, the lake shore, and the Canada railway. How Cornelius Vanderbilt’s product influenced society is cause the railroad is one of the methods of transportation not the most efficient way of traveling anymore but a big number of people use it all over the world. Cornelius Vanderbilt was very successful at what he did because he was ruthless, smart, and new how to run his company. Also because at the time of his death he was worth about or more than “100 million dollars”8. Today his product is still highly used today by millions and millions of people day in and out. Why it still exists is because people use the train as transportation whether it is going home, to work, to school, people won’t always have cars to use or afford taking airlines. There are a few one or two interesting facts about Vanderbilt is that the railroad “was built by a majority of Chinese, Irish, and Italian.” 9 Also that “Vanderbilt had married his cousin France Armstrong but dealt with some controversy.”
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Cornelius Vanderbilt was a captain of industry. He came from a poor family and turned into a captain of industry controlling 85% of rail road and inspiring others to follow suit. He did many great things and not so great. Went from making a steamboat ferry to Grand Central Station. By the end of his life he had more than $100 million dollars.
To urban middle-class Americans of the late 19th century, nothing symbolized the progress of the American civilization quite as much as the railroad. Not only had the great surge in railroad construction after the Civil War helped to create a modern market economy, but the iron horse itself seemed to embody the energy, force, and technology of the new order. In fact, the fanning out of railroads from urban centers was an integral part of the modernizing process, tying the natural and human resources of rural areas to the industrializing core.
Hill a market engineer was known best for being the builder of the Great Northern railroad. He was the onl y entrepreneur in the ninetiinth century who did not get any goverment funds to build his rail roads. His philosophy guided him to succeed and flourish through all the depression and fierce competion, receiving no tax payers dollars. He build the most efficient railroad lines, building the line straight as possible, taking in consideration the best elevations and useing the highest quality bessemer rails. Because he took no Federal aid he formed private contracts with Indian reservations in North Dakota and Montana. Doing this let him cut fuel costs alot and made rail repairs very low. He also Promoted exports, by giving land to immigrant along the line and showed them how to farm. He did experiments on what could be grown and how to produce it in the best way and the best quality. Doing this he was able to export wheat from the farms and also increase the population of the region. Then another thing that made him strive was he only expanded as profits allowed. He moved way slower than the other railroad companys, but when he was done his finances were well in order and sound. He was able to buy out St. Paul and Pacific Rail, also he invested 6 million dollars into 2 steamships and began exporting products from america to china, India, and Japan. this increased Us exports to japan from 7.7 million dollars to 51.7 million dollars in nine years. Also supplying
Another example of him being a robber baron is because of how he ran his railroad. His disregard for worker safety was very poor. The poor railroad working conditions made for underpaid workers and safety hazards for everyone working for him. It would cost him money to provide safety measures and precautions in the railways. This is how he treated his workers and this shows how greedy and conservative he was with his money. His workers deserved at least a little more safety than what he was providing. His cheap ways were very detrimental to his workers in those conditions. This is a clear example of how he had no consideration for his employers and installed no safety precautions.
Cornelius Vanderbilt was born in Port Richmond on Staten Island, N. Y. in 1794. Cornelius at the age of 16 had already stepped into the busniess world and he didn’t even know it. At 16 he entered into the steamboat business when he established a freight and passenger service between Stanton Island and Manhattan. Little did Cornelius know this would be one of the key ways he would make his millions upon millions. Cornelius entered the steamer business in 1818, and bought his first steamship in 1829. Cornelius was not a laid back guy nothing was ever good enough for him. If you had and Cornelius Vanderbilt wanted it there wasn’t much you could do to keep him from getting it. This is the kind of attitude that put him on top of the world. After establishing his steamboat Vanderbilt became a very vigorous competitor, lowering his rates while also making his ships top of the line. Vanderbilt the entrepuner himself soon controlled must of the Hudson River. After awhile his fellow competitors in the steamboat business paid him to take some of his traffic elsewhere so that he wouldn’t get all the work. By 1846 Vanderbilt was a very wealthy man and with wealth he learned cam power. He became widely know as the Commodore Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt sold his steamboats in 1862 and began buying railroad stocks. In a mere 5 years Vanderbilt used his power to uphold most of the New York Central Railroad system. Vanderbilt like in his steamboats strived to be the best in the railroads now. Vanderbilt established many railway systems during his railroad career maybe his most famous was that of the one that connected New York and Chicago in a direct rail route in 1873. At the time of Vanderbilt’s death in 1877 he was worth over 100 million dollars the most at that time.
As mentioned, it is accurate to allot the title of “robber baron” to the industrial leaders of the time in that they employed various, considerably unethical, methods in order to obtain untold riches. Such a notion is quite evident in William H. Vanderbilt’s own words, that, “[t]he railroads are not run for the benefit of the ‘dear public’-that cry is all nonsense they are built by men who invest their money”. (Document A) Vanderbilt even goes so far as to say something such as, “[t]he public be damned”, so to demonstrate he does not care for the opinion and state of the public, but rather only of his own and of his fellow financiers. Such statements prove that Vanderbilt sought to further his wealth, whether or not ...
Thomas Jefferson has an amazing role in our lives today from the hard work and time he spent to make an easier future for all of us. There are days that some of us could not thrive as the people we are without the appliances he made to make challenging tasks easier for us. Some people look up to him because he never stopped doing great things and never stopped showing unselfishness. Thomas Jefferson revolutionized the world of the 18th century and centuries to come. Thomas Jefferson was one of the most influential people of the 18th century because he was one of the founding fathers of America, he was the founder of the University of Virginia, and he was the creator of many life changing inventions, which drastically changed the world.
George M. Pullman is best remembered for his contributions to the railroad industry through the invention of his Pullman Cars. The cars sold well and the railroad industry flourished with this new invention. Although the success attached to his name, not many people know the real truth behind this robber baron. His greed for money took him to extreme measures as his workers were seriously mistreated and put under strict
Railroads were one of the most used transportation during the Gilded Age, making traveling the United States quicker. This allowed shipping products to other states easier, while keeping the consumers happy. Originally, shipping steel, or other heavy equipment was near impossible until railroads/train could carry mass tons of products.
He was already in his later years by the time the Gilded Age rolled around and didn't even get to see the uprising of some of the greatest leaders of the time. The railroad companies took advantage of their necessity by constantly overcharging customers, especially farmers. This led to one of the first labor unions in the United States, an organization known as the Grange.... ... middle of paper ...
One of the most important achievements of the Gilded Age was the creation of a network of railroads including the transcontinental railroad, which connected the United States from New York to California, facilitating transportation across the continent. During the Gilded Age the length of all the railroads combined increased threefold ("Second Industrial Revolution"). This was significant not only because it decreased travel time from the eastern to western parts of the U.S and vice versa down from months to weeks and allowed people to settle the central United States, but also opened new areas for commercial farming and gave an economic boost to steel...
Seavoy, Ronald E. "Railroads." An Economic History of the United States: From 1607 to the Present. New York: Routledge, 2006. 188-200. Print.
The Transcontinental railroad could be defined as the most monumental change in America in the 19th century. The railroad played a significant role in westward expansion and on the growth and development of the American economy (Gillon p.653). However, the construction of the transcontinental railroad may not have occurred if not for the generous support of the federal government. The federal government provided land grants and financial subsidies to railroad companies to ensure the construction. The transcontinental railroad contributed to the formation of industry and the market economy in America and forever altered the American lifestyle.
"Railroads were the first big business, the first magnet for the great financial markets, and the first industry to develop a large-scale management bureaucracy. The railroads opened the western half of the nation to economic development, connected raw materials to factories and retailers, and in so doing created an interconnected national market. At the same time the railroads were themselves gigantic consumers of iron, steel, lumber, and other capital goods". (Tindall, Shi)
Another way he challenged democracy was by buying off legislature and controlling how they voted. Vanderbilt’s enormous fortune gave him great power; however, one of the Commodore’s greatest attributes was his ability to manipulate others into doing what he wanted them to do to further his own agenda. An example of Vanderbilt’s wit is his ability to plan schemes out years in advance. He would set traps and patiently wait for others to fall into them then he would swoop in and takeover. Charles Francis Adams, Jr. described Vanderbilt by saying he “has sought to make himself a dictator in modern civilization… As trade now dominates the world, and the railways dominate trade, his object has been to make himself the virtual master of all by making himself absolute lord of the railways.” No amount of power was ever enough for