Author: Alexander Okun

How Big Business Transformed the United States into an Industrial Power

America’s industrialization is a tale full of drama, great achievement and tragedy, victory, and defeat. It is a tale of the rise of one the main symbols of American society – Big Business. It is a tale with heroes and villains, who figure in Americans’ historical memory as captains of industry or “robber barons,” depending on how one views their achievements and their consequences.

In medieval Europe, the “robber barons” were landowners who blocked the roads and rivers belonging to them, demanding payment for the right to pass by vehicle or even on foot. This term was brought back from obscurity in 1859 by a journalist for The New York Times, when the term “robber baron” was applied to shipping magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt. He would let his competitors use the routes he controlled only after they paid him a hefty sum. America never had a medieval period, but it came nevertheless, even if it was during the industrial era.

In the final third of the 19th century, amidst a period of intensive economic growth and industrialization in the U.S., the biggest abuses and most corrupt practices were connected to the construction and exploitation of new transportation arteries. It was not just the enormous capital that was circulating in this sphere; roads became the bloodlines of the new American economy. The centralization of control was felt by everyone, from owners of major companies, to simple farmers who had to get their harvest to consumers, to city dwellers who experienced a sharp increase in the price of everyday goods.

The U.S. legal system was completely unprepared for these new challenges. It was impossible to hold Vanderbilt to account, since he was not violating any laws. When reading the biographies of the “robber barons,” one can’t help but be surprised at the various and cunning means they

Cornelius VanderbiltBain News Service

© Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA

Business and Technology in the U.S.сourse:

invented to enrich themselves. Under their pressure, the government system devised by the Founding Fathers began to unravel. But it’s just as surprising that these robber barons, despite their greed, their lack of morals, and even, at times, their cruelty, did not manage to put America’s entire national wealth in their pockets, or take control of the government.

Moreover, some of them, in their old age, became active philanthropists, giving a significant portion of their accumulated millions to charity, museums, universities, and libraries. On the whole, American society gained more than it lost as a result of this tumultuous period from the 1870s to the 1890s, which Mark Twain dubbed “the Gilded Age.”

The story of how these future American multimillionaires earned their money is rife with examples of determination and hard work. Take, for example, Andrew Carnegie. In 1848, his family moved from Scotland to western Pennsylvania to escape dire poverty, when America’s future “steel king” was not even 13 years old. Andrew had to take a job at a local weaving plant, working six days a week, 12 hours a day, loading spools of thread onto the machines, making less than five dollars a month.

Some time later, using his connections, Carnegie was able to get work as a telegraph operator. That was when he began to show his amazing abilities: he remembered the names of all the clients, and, unlike his colleagues, he could translate Morse code into text as he heard it, without writing it down on paper first.

His career took off, and at age 24, Carnegie had already become the head of one branch of the Pennsylvania railroad. Gradually, thanks to wise investments and his connections in the state’s business circles, Carnegie accumulated enough capital to open his own steel mill.

But Carnegie’s biography can hardly be considered the most typical rags-to-riches example in America’s Gilded Age. There are other tales where fortunes were amassed by other means. One of the best-known men of this type is Daniel Drew. His father died when he was young, and during the War of 1812 with the British, he earned his first $100 by joining the army in place of a wealthy neighbor. Later, Daniel would earn money by working with a traveling circus, and then switched to selling livestock, where he engaged in his first serious business endeavor. He bought a small herd on credit, then contracted to sell the cows. But the night before the sale he fed the cows salt, and as a result, the cows drank so much water that each of them had gained a couple of dozen kilos.

Andrew CarnegieHarris & Ewing

© Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA

When Drew became a well-known stock trader many years later, he often used similar methods: he would release unsecured shares to companies he owned. When his competitors tried to gain a controlling interest in his firms, they would suffer serious losses, chasing after endlessly multiplying “securities,” and at the end be forced to relinquish their plans.

This type of stock market manipulation was called “stock watering” – believed to come from Drew’s old practice of giving his cows water to drink before taking them to market. So the skills he learned from cowboys and New York butchers helped Drew in this new phase of his biography, allowing him to become one of the leading financial magnates of his time. Like almost all the robber barons, at the height of his career Drew controlled several major railroad branches, including the extremely profitable Erie Railroad, which traveled along the famous canal of the same name.

Two of Drew’s colleagues on the Erie Railroad Board of Directors, Jay Gould and Jim Fisk, earned their place in history thanks to a major stock scheme they organized in 1869. By bribing people close to President Ulysses S. Grant, Fisk and Gould first arranged to suspend regular sales of gold from the U.S. Treasury, then started buying up the precious metal, driving its price up by 60%.

The amounts these speculators were dealing in were so high that a one-dollar rise in value of an ounce of gold yielded a profit of $300,000 (in 2019 prices). In just one day, Gould and Fisk earned several million dollars each, while ordinary Americans, forced to pay their bills with rapidly devaluating “greenbacks,” could only look on in horror. Finally, President Grant caught on to what was happening and ordered the Treasury to sell a significant portion of the nation’s gold reserve. The price of gold plunged by 30% in just one day (“Black Friday,” September 24, 1869); Gould and Fisk lost some of their millions, many stock traders went bankrupt, and the country entered a recession that lasted several months.

When Gould and Fisk were brought to account for what they did, it turned out that the judges of New York, who were controlled by another robber baron, William Tweed, were not inclined to hear the case impartially, all the more so since the swindlers were being defended by the best lawyers in the country. As a result, Gould and Fisk escaped criminal charges, although Gould was forced to leave New York, where he was almost lynched on the street. He later became the owner of several railroad branches out West. Fisk also continued his career in business, although he was killed in 1872.

Daniel DrewMathew B. Brady

© Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA

The power and influence of the robber barons in the 1870s-1890s grew to such an extent that they began to exercise real influence on the foreign and domestic policies of the United States. The U.S. Senate was under the de facto control of financial magnates: At that time senators were not elected by popular vote, but were selected by the legislative bodies of the separate states. The robber barons, with their millions, were easily able to bribe local legislatures, and they made sure that “reliable” people were selected for the Senate. Sometimes they took Senate seats for themselves.

The U.S. Congress was at the height of its power: after the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln in 1865, the White House passed to a string of weak presidents, with little political talent. The system of checks and balances that the Founding Fathers had built into the Constitution did not work, which allowed the growing class of American multimillionaires to pass laws that were beneficial to themselves without having to worry about public opinion.

The huge amount of capital circulating in the rapidly growing U.S. economy provided rich grounds for corruption. It was difficult for government workers to resist the temptation of personal wealth when the robber barons insisted on offering them opportunities for mutually beneficial projects. The administration of President Ulysses S. Grant, mentioned above, found itself once again at the center of a corruption scandal in 1872: Grant’s Vice President, Schuyler Colfax, was accused of acquiring, for cut-rate prices, shares in a fictitious construction company, Crédit Mobilier, which had been created by the owners of the Union Pacific transcontinental railroad to further their interests.

In addition to Colfax, several other high-ranking politicians were tempted by the cheap, profitable shares: Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives James Blaine, 1872 Vice President candidate Henry Wilson, congressman James Garfield, and many others. It’s worth mentioning that, despite exposés published in the New York Sun and furious discussion among the citizenry, almost all participants in the scandal came out with their reputations intact. Their political careers continued uninterrupted, and James Garfield was even elected President of the United States in 1880.

Neither people living at that time, nor Americans living in the 21st century, would have trouble deciding what kind of people Drew, Gould, and Fisk were. They were crooks, of course, who used any possibility open to them for personal gain. They also posed a threat to the prosperity of millions

Jay GouldGeorge Grantham Bain

© Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA

Jim Fisk© The Life of Col. James Fisk, Jr…, Goodspeed, J.W.

of people and caused significant harm to the reputation of the U.S. both at home and abroad. European newspapers covered the American corruption scandals in detail, which just reinforced the already widespread opinion in the Old World that the U.S. political class was completely subservient to the interests of the robber barons. It created the impression that the American experiment, which rested on the noble ideas of the Founding Fathers about service to society and the priority of shared values, had failed, and a new state was rising across the ocean that was based on the ideology of social Darwinism.

Representatives of this ideology (of which the clearest example is the Englishman Herbert Spencer), maintained that human society is ruled by the same principle of natural selection, or survival of the fittest, that Charles Darwin used to explain evolution in the animal world. The conduct of the robber barons, and of those politicians they bought, could be easily explained by such a theory.

But in spite of the moral degradation that was apparent to many observers, American society continued to grow and develop. Corruption caused a huge public outcry and brought a lot of negative consequences in its wake, but it did not halt the construction of new railroads, roads, mines, and factories. Odious figures like Drew, Gould, and Fisk attracted attention, but they were not the true creators of industrial America.

There were a lot of complicated characters among the robber barons, such as Andrew Carnegie, whom we have already met. They, of course, were no strangers to various shady schemes, and they did not consider it morally unacceptable to bribe government officials, but they did not earn their money solely through primitive financial speculation. In the economic conditions that were forming in the U.S. at the time, it was often easier to earn millions, not by playing the stock market, but by developing new fields of industry, which at that time was experiencing an historic boom.

Among the most brilliant robber barons in this category, who certainly took care of enriching themselves, but also made enormous contributions to the development of the nation, one man stands out: John D. Rockefeller, creator of the U.S. oil industry.

The name Rockefeller has become synonymous with immense, incomparable wealth. Rockefeller does, indeed, head all possible lists of the richest people in U.S. history. At the peak of his career in 1913, Rockefeller had assets amounting to 2% of the entire U.S. economy ($400 billion in today’s prices). The Standard Oil Company he created in 1891 controlled 70% of the world oil trade.

John D. Rockefeller© Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA

On the one hand, one could say that Rockefeller was simply lucky: he began to drill and refine oil in the 1860s, at the dawn of the new petroleum era. Rockefeller founded the Standard Oil Company with five partners in 1870, when kerosene started to be used for lighting, and was enjoying tremendous demand all across America. In the 1890s, Edison’s electric light bulb edged out kerosene lamps a bit, but numerous new consumers of petroleum products appeared: owners of cars with gas engines.

Undoubtedly, Rockefeller’s unique qualities — mainly his harsh character, sometimes bordering on cruelty — largely made it possible for Standard Oil to win 90% of the American market for petroleum products just five years after its creation. In 1880, Rockefeller’s company was already being characterized in the American press as «the most cruel, impudent, pitiless, and grasping monopoly that ever fastened upon a country.»

The dubious methods that Rockefeller employed to engulf smaller competitors and create his own oil empire became widely known after the publication in 1904 of a series of exposés that turned into a famous book by Ida Tarbell, The History of the Standard Oil Company.

Tarbell’s research created a distinctive standard for this type of work. After this exposé of Rockefeller’s abuses, many other publications appeared, casting light on how the business empires of America’s leading industrialists and financial magnates had been built.

Journalists working on such themes began to be called “muckrakers,” a term devised by President Theodore Roosevelt. Thanks in large measure to Tarbell’s exposés, the U.S. Supreme Court in 1911 decided that the Standard Oil Company was to be liquidated for violating anti-trust legislation, and broken up into dozens of smaller companies. These new companies later became Chevron, Mobil, ExxonMobil and other famous brands that still exist today.

We should note that Rockefeller, the richest man in the country, who had vanquished all competitors, subordinating them to himself, could not stop Ida Tarbell from publishing compromising materials in her articles and books. He had to hide from journalists, answering every question with just one line: “Not one word about this misguided woman.” Rockefeller even lost all his hair from the stress.

Of course, the breakup of Standard Oil did not make Rockefeller any poorer: the market value of the 34 companies that arose from its ashes was worth more in total than the original company, and

Ida Tarbell J.E. Purdy

© Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA

Rockefeller was the main shareholder.

Even Ida Tarbell could not deny that Rockefeller had made an enormous contribution to the industrial development of the U.S., and that it was in large part thanks to his efforts that America had outpaced its competitors on the cusp of the 20th century, assuming a leading position in the world economy.

Rockefeller, despite all the cynicism and cruelty of the business world in which he had to function, was quite religious throughout his long life (he died in 1937 at the age of 97). He regularly attended prayer meetings and was an active philanthropist.

Rockefeller’s mother often brought her son to the local Baptist church in a small town in New York. That is where little John heard the preacher utter the phrase that, according to his own recollections, dictated the life creed of the future multimillionaire and philanthropist: “I believe it is a religious duty to get all the money you can, fairly and honestly; to keep all you can, and to give away all you can.”

As a philanthropist, Rockefeller gave special consideration to church groups, universities, and medical facilities. In his youth, Rockefeller had been an abolitionist – an active opponent of slavery. As such, a significant portion of his charity donations from Standard Oil were allocated to the education and medical care of former slaves.

In 1902, Rockefeller donated $180 million to create the General Education Board, a philanthropic organization giving grants to various universities and medical schools right up until the 1960s. In 1913, soon after the breakup of Standard Oil, he established the Rockefeller Foundation, whose mission included nothing less than “promoting the well-being of humanity throughout the world.” Altogether, Rockefeller donated almost $550 million to charity throughout his life, which would equal close to $50 billion in today’s money.

Rockefeller’s example — becoming a major philanthropist in the second half of his life — was more the rule than the exception for many of America’s industrial magnates of that era.

Andrew Carnegie, the “Steel King,” donated around $350 million to charity, and bequeathed to his heirs the following life strategy: spend the first third getting an education, the second third making money, and the final third spending that money to benefit society.

John Pierpont Morgan© Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA

One of the most odious robber barons, John Pierpont (J.P.) Morgan, is known not only as the founder of a financial empire and the owner of many banks, factories, railroads, and the U.S. Steel Corporation (to whom even the U.S. federal government sometimes had to turn for help), but also as a patron of the arts, who gave significant support to museums and universities.

After Morgan’s sudden death in 1913 at the age of 75, it turned out that his personal fortune was a mere $118 million, of which $50 million was invested in his art collection. Learning of this, Rockefeller noted: “and to think, he wasn’t even a rich man.”

Another instructive tale from that time is the history of the Guggenheim family. The patriarch of the family, Meyer Guggenheim, moved to the U.S. from Switzerland in 1847, and profitably invested money in mining in Colorado, where “silver fever” was just taking hold.

Meyer’s aim was not just to earn his own American million, but to make each of his seven sons a millionaire. By the end of the 1880s, he had reached his goal: each of the Guggenheim brothers was a director of part of his father’s business empire, composed of numerous mines and metallurgy plants, scattered all over the world. But the Guggenheim family is rarely listed among America’s robber barons: there is almost no evidence that any of them engaged in shady practices. The envious could only mutter: “what one Guggenheim missed another was sure to think of.”

As a philanthropist, Solomon Guggenheim was the most prominent of Meyer’s sons: in 1937 he created a charity foundation and transferred to it a rich collection of paintings and other objects, which formed the core collection of New York’s Guggenheim Museum.

The debate is still raging in American historical literature about whether these captains of industry were unprincipled, cynical robber barons, governed only by their own mercenary interest, or leaders of the nation, who carried out the industrialization of the American economy.

It is obvious that the world of “savage capitalism” described in the works of social Darwinists, if left to its own devices, could never have grown to value public service and social responsibility. The law of profit maximization forced the robber barons to pay as little as possible to the workers in their factories, and not to invest resources in worker safety or improving their workers’ living conditions. Millions of European immigrants, drawn to the U.S. by stories of amazing economic opportunity and political freedom, were prepared to work for almost nothing by American standards, since the situation in their home countries was even worse.

Solomon GuggenheimBain News Service

© Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA

There was no talk of worker solidarity, of a willingness to stand up against capitalist exploitation. Although trade unions, such as the Knights of Labor and the American Federation of Labor, appeared in the United States in the last quarter of the 19th century, bringing together thousands of people, generally the labor movement posed no threat to big business. When there were occasional strikes, even the likes of churchgoing John Rockefeller, or Andrew Carnegie, who loved to discourse on the common good, displayed iron will and decisiveness, giving the order to use force against workers attempting to defend their rights.

In 1892, several people were killed and hundreds injured when a workers’ demonstration was disrupted at the Carnegie Steel Company in Homestead, Pennsylvania. In 1914, a real war, involving units of the National Guard, broke out in Colorado, where miners at Rockefeller’s coal mines went on strike.

Rapid economic growth brought unprecedented wealth to some Americans. In 1870, there were just 100 or so millionaires in the country; in 1892, according to The New York Tribune, there were already 4,047. By 1916, the number of millionaires was over 40,000, and at least two of them (John D. Rockefeller and Henry Ford) were billionaires. For many of them money and luxury were not ends in themselves but were a means of creation; Rockefeller and Ford led fairly modest lives: they did not use tobacco or alcohol, they worked hard, and they demanded the same from their employees.

In 1914, Henry Ford introduced the highest minimum wage in the United States – five dollars a day (approximately $120 in today’s money). He also gave his workers a share in the company’s profits, and built a model workers’ village, with kindergartens and comfortable homes.

In 1914 his factories began operating around the clock – three shifts of eight hours each, instead of two 9-hour shifts, which allowed him to employ several thousand more people. The higher salary of five dollars a day was not guaranteed: the worker had to spend his wages wisely, supporting his family; employees could be fired for drunkenness or gambling. Of course, Ford did not do this out of purely altruistic motives. He was acting primarily out of pragmatism: staff turnover was almost zero, and Ford could attract the most qualified workers to his factories (and poach them from his competitors). In addition, by raising workers’ standard of living he turned them into model consumers

Henry Ford© Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA

– they could even buy Ford cars. Thus welfare capitalism was born; after Ford other entrepreneurs were forced to raise wages and cut hours, and later these changes were fixed in the law.

Many factors were involved in the transformation of “savage” capitalism into something more orderly and socially responsible. One of them was a social movement that spread throughout the country and came to be called the “progressive” movement.

We have already mentioned episodes like the investigation of the Crédit Mobilier scandal by journalists from The New York Sun, or the exposé of Rockefeller written by Ida Tarbell. There are a large number of such examples in American history from the end of the 19th to the beginning of the 20th centuries: the discovery of “Boss” Tweed’s corrupt schemes by New York City journalists; Upton Sinclair’s novel The Jungle, detailing the appalling conditions at Chicago meat-packing plants; and articles by Lincoln Steffens later collected in a book under the title The Shame of the Cities. These and other publications created an atmosphere of constant attention and control around the robber barons, depriving them of the certainty that they would not be punished for their shady dealings.

It is interesting to note that the principle of free speech, guaranteed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, was an important factor, but certainly not the key one, in the boom of investigative journalism in the U.S. at the end of the 19th century. While it is true that the government did not prosecute journalists for their political views, nothing prevented Rockefeller or Boss Tweed from simply buying a newspaper publishing unflattering articles and changing its editorial policy to a more desirable one. No Constitutional amendment could have stopped that.

Unfortunately for the robber barons, though, their ascension to the heights of wealth and glory coincided with the technological revolution in printing: the improvement of printing presses made it possible to print enormous numbers of newspapers and magazine quickly and cheaply. New publications sprang up like mushrooms after a downpour. It would have been as difficult to take control of all of them as it would be today to establish total control over information published on the Internet. In addition, even monopolists like Rockefeller always had a certain number of rivals, who might not have the resources to compete with Standard Oil in the petroleum industry, but who could finance the work of several muckraking journalists.

Another key factor in restraining the capitalist predators of the Gilded Age was the U.S. judicial system. It may not have been totally free of corruption, but it was independent of the other branches of power. The American public, having read their fill of the muckrakers’ material, demanded trials and verdicts – and in many cases this thirst for justice was satisfied, to a greater or lesser extent.

Election campaigns on all levels, which occurred regularly in the U.S. during the Gilded Age, were heavily influenced by the robber barons, who used the enormous resources under their control to promote the candidates they wanted. But even here, constant criticism from representatives of the progressive movement took effect: first, the principle of the secret ballot was introduced, then party primaries to nominate candidates, and in 1913 the 17th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified, which introduced the direct election of senators.

After all this, history continues to witness loopholes where the owners of business empires affected the outcomes of election campaigns, but there was no longer the all-embracing control of government institutions by the business elite that had existed in the 19th century.

The culmination of the progressive period, a time when the attention of Americans began to shift from corruption and monopolies to other subjects, coincided with the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909).

Roosevelt was the first strong, decisive president in many years, and he was intent on reform. The American government under his leadership tried to issue an open challenge to the all-powerful robber barons, although Roosevelt had no plan to subordinate the capitalist class to government

bureaucrats. The president only wanted to get rid of the worst abuses, and to enforce laws that had been on the books for a long time, but were not working, like the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, which was supposed to rein in the monopolies after the first wave of exposés were published.

Private business, strong and independent, was, in the President’s mind, an important engine for the U.S. economy, the source of its phenomenal growth. For this reason, when devising measures against the monopolies, Roosevelt tried hard not to harm the “good” businessmen, who had earned their millions honestly. Roosevelt initiated more than 40 court cases against the monopolies; several of these ended in the liquidation of the most odious of the companies, and the president was nicknamed “The Trustbuster.”

This led to the regulation of business, a strengthening of the government’s role in regulating the economic development of the country, development of labor legislation, and limits on the worst forms of exploitation. Even this modest encroachment on the power of capital caused a real furor in American society. Abuses by the legislative branch seen in previous decades began to disappear, and the Constitutional system of checks and balances once more began to work in full force. Upset at such a turn of events, Speaker of the House Joseph Cannon declared: “That fellow at the other end of the avenue wants everything from the birth of Christ to the death of the devil.”

It is true that Roosevelt wanted to change American life in significant ways, and over time he became an icon of the progressive movement. After leaving the White House, Roosevelt, breaking with the Republicans completely, formed his own Progressive Party, and ran for President in 1912 as a Progressive. But in the American two-party system, a candidate from a third party, even one as charismatic as Roosevelt, was doomed. Roosevelt lost the election, but another progressive politician won: Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat, who continued Roosevelt’s policy of using government regulatory measures to make the robber barons behave more responsibly. Laws were adopted mandating an eight-hour workday for employees of private railroads (the first time in history that the U.S. government had established workday limits for private companies), a ban on child labor, and an easing of restrictions on labor unions.

The Department of Labor, which had been established by Wilson’s immediate predecessor, William Taft, began to work as a mediator in disputes between workers and owners. At the same time, the 16th Amendment to the Constitution was adopted, which gave Congress the right to establish a federal income tax.

During the First World War, the process of harmonization of relations between society, the government, and big business picked up pace. During the American period of neutrality, the U.S. economy received additional stimulus through foreign investment — orders of military equipment from the countries of the Entente. After the U.S. entered the war in April, 1917, the government was the major investor in the economy, simultaneously strengthening control over the socioeconomic life of the country: a de facto emergency war administration was created, which adopted unprecedented measures to regulate the economy. Prices on raw materials and basic goods were fixed, the government assumed control of entire sectors (primarily transportation and communications), and taxes were raised on the most profitable companies.

During the First World War, the U.S. became a highly industrialized power, one of the most powerful countries in the world economy, whose national wealth rose by 40%, where half of the world’s gold reserves were held, and where the value of industrial output rose from 23.9 to 62 billion dollars. Industrial and banking systems became more concentrated. The volume of foreign trade doubled; the value of exports tripled (from 2.4 to 7.9 billion dollars). The international financial status of the U.S. changed: the country liquidated almost half of its debt and became a creditor to many countries, with a total sum of 15 billion dollars.

As a result, the U.S., with 6% of the world’s population, produced more than half of the world’s industrial output, half of its coal, two-thirds of its oil, three-fifths of its steel and iron, and 85% of its cars.

By this time, it was clear that the era of the robber barons had come to an end. American society had coped with the challenges of “savage capitalism,” was able to weather social Darwinism, and could retreat from the extreme cynicism and egoism of the Gilded Age. Americans were able to deal with all these misfortunes thanks to long-standing social and political institutions, such as a free press, an independent judiciary, and the electoral system, among others.

Religious traditions, especially the Protestant view that material wealth was pleasing to God, and also a special attitude towards philanthropy, doubtless played a role. Even one of the worst of the robber barons, Daniel Drew, left $250,000 to create a Methodist seminary (although it must be said that, shortly before his death, Drew went completely bankrupt, and the money never got to the intended beneficiaries. Drew maintained his special style to the end.)

In just a few decades, the U.S. transformed itself from a provincial backwater, with an economy that was not well integrated with the rest of the world, engulfed in internal problems, and conducting a policy of isolationism, into the world’s economic leader, the most advanced technological power, and the trend-setter in organizing production and management.

Big business played a major role in this miraculous transformation, completely changing American society with its harsh, sometimes cruel methods. Among the names of those who created modern America — politicians, scientists, and leaders in culture and the arts — we must give a prominent place to the captains of big business.

Additional Literature:

Geisst, Charles, “Wall Street: A History”

Oxford University Press 1997

Carnegie, Andrew, “The Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie”

Wentworth Press, 2016 (or any other edition)

Morris, Charles, “The Tycoons: How Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Jay Gould, and J.

P. Morgan Invented the American Supereconomy”

New York, 2005

Nevins, Allan,”John D. Rockefeller: Industrialist and Philanthropist”

Scribner, New York, 1959

Rockefeller, J., “Random Reminiscences of Men and Events”

University Press of the Pacific, 2003 (or any other edition)

Sogrin, V.V. “Political History of the USA”

Moscow, Ves’ mir, 2001

Strouse, Jean, “Morgan: American Financier”

Random House, New York, 1999

Yashunskiy, G., “Billionnaires: A History of the Major Financial Dynasties”

Moscow, Algoritm, 2016

Davis, John H. The Guggenheims, 1848–1988: An American Epic

Shapolsky, 1988

The People Who Built America

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_jiLfL54gs