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Dec 27, 2018 · The term "robber baron" began to be used in the early 1870s to describe a class of extremely wealthy businessmen who used ruthless and unethical business tactics to dominate vital industries. In an era with virtually no regulation of business, industries such as railroads, steel, and petroleum became monopolies.
- Cornelius Vanderbilt
He was Amazon.com's first-ever history editor and has...
- 6 Robber Barons From America's Past
Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794–1877) was a shipping and railroad...
- Cornelius Vanderbilt
- Overview
- John Jacob Astor
- James Fisk
- Leland Stanford
- John D. Rockefeller
- Other robber barons
United States history
Written byStephen Schneider
Stephen Schneider
Associate Professor, Department of Sociology and Criminology, Saint Mary's University, Halifax, Nova Scotia. Author of Iced: The Story of Organized Crime in Canada. His contributions to SAGE Publications's Encyclopedia of White-Collar and Corporate Crime (2013) formed the basis of his contributions to Britannica.
Fact-checked byThe Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Among the earliest of the robber barons was John Jacob Astor, a fur magnate who amassed his fortune through the monopoly held by his American Fur Company over the trade in the central and western United States during the first 30 years of the 19th century. This monopoly was achieved in part by crushing rivals and systematically cheating Native Amer...
James Fisk, one Wall Street’s first great financiers, accumulated much of his fortune by fraudulent stock market practices. Fisk took much of the considerable money he made from smuggling Southern cotton to Northern mills during the American Civil War and invested it in Confederate bonds. He then swindled European investors by selling short when the defeat of the Confederate army was imminent but before Europe learned that the Confederate currency had collapsed.
A caricature of James Fisk, c. 1860s.
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
In 1866, he formed the brokerage firm Fisk and Belden, and later he and his colleagues protected their control over the Erie Railroad Company by issuing fraudulent stock. Along with his associates, Fisk attempted to corner the gold market by inflating the price, which was accomplished by bribing public officials to keep government gold off the market. The venture brought them vast sums but led to a securities market panic that began on September 24, 1869, a day that was long remembered as Black Friday. At the time, the negative repercussions of the gold hoarding shook the economy and the scandal-plagued administration of Pres. Ulysses S. Grant.
Leland Stanford became involved in Republican politics in California and was elected governor in 1861. While governor, Stanford approved millions of dollars in state grants for the construction of a transcontinental railroad line during a period when he was also president of the Central Pacific Railroad. With three colleagues, he formed the Pacific Association and used their combined assets to bribe congressmen and others with political influence in the country’s capital. In return, the association was provided 9 million acres (3.6 million hectares) and a $24 million loan financed by federal bonds.
Leland Stanford, c. 1890.
Courtesy of San Jose Public Library, California Room
In addition, Stanford and his associates intimidated local governments into providing millions of dollars in subsidies by threatening to have the rail line bypass their communities. In 1885, Stanford was elected to the U.S. Senate by the legislature and re-elected in 1891. In 1885 also, he established what would later become Stanford University. Stanford died in 1893 worth more than $18 billion in 2004 dollars.
John D. Rockefeller made his immense riches from monopolizing America’s oil industry. Conspiring with refinery owners, he helped found what became known as the Standard Oil monopoly. The consortium colluded with the railroads to monopolize oil delivery, prompting competitors to allow themselves to be bought by Standard Oil or be forced to pay outrageous shipping costs that would drive them out of business. These who stubbornly resisted were confronted with price wars. By 1890, the Rockefeller trust controlled approximately 90 percent of the petroleum production in the United States, a situation that led to the passage of the Sherman Antitrust Act that same year.
John D. Rockefeller, 1884.
Among the others who are often counted among the robber barons are financier J.P. Morgan, who organized a number of major railroads and consolidated the United States Steel, International Harvester, and General Electric corporations; Andrew Carnegie, who led the enormous expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century; shipping and railroad magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt; industrialist George Pullman, the inventor of the Pullman sleeping car; and Henry Clay Frick, who helped build the world’s largest coke and steel operations. Perhaps ironically, many of the robber barons were also among the most prominent and generous philanthropists in U.S. history.
J.P. Morgan, 1902.
The term robber baron derives from the Raubritter ( robber knights ), the medieval German lords who charged nominally illegal tolls (unauthorized by the Holy Roman Emperor) on the primitive roads crossing their lands, [4] or larger tolls along the Rhine river. The metaphor appeared as early as February 9, 1859, when The New York Times used it ...
Mar 2, 2021 · Robert McNamara. Updated on March 02, 2021. Robber Baron was a term applied to a businessman in the 19th century who engaged in unethical and monopolistic practices, utilized corrupt political influence, faced almost no business regulation, and amassed enormous wealth. The term itself was not coined in the 1800s, but actually dated back centuries.
May 21, 2018 · These business owners used modern strategies such as vertical integration (the involvement of a business in all aspects of the production of a product) to increase their wealth and put competitors out of business. Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794–1877) is considered to have been the first robber baron.
The robber barons came into power around the close of the American Civil War (1861–65; a war between the Union [the North], who were opposed to slavery, and the Confederacy [ the South ], who were in favor of slavery), at a time when all the pieces were in place for tremendous expansion.
