Robber baron (industrialist)
Robber baron is a pejorative term used for a powerful 19th century American businessman. By the 1890s, the term was typically applied to businessmen who were viewed as having used questionable practices to amass their wealth. It combines the sense of criminal ("robber") and illegitimate aristocracy ("baron").[1]
The term derives from the medieval German lords who legally charged tolls on ships traversing the Rhine without adding anything of value. (see robber baron). There is dispute over the term's origin and use.[2] U.S. political and economic commentator Matthew Josephson popularized the term during the Great Depression in a 1934 book by the same title. He attributed the phrase to an 1880 anti-monopoly pamphlet about railroad magnates.[3] Like the German antecedents, Josephson alleged that American big businessmen amassed huge fortunes immorally, unethically, and unjustly. The theme was popular during the Great Depression amid public scorn for big business.
After the Depression, business historians, led by Allan Nevins, began revising this view of American big businessmen by advocating the "Industrial Statesman" thesis. Nevins, in his John D. Rockefeller: The Heroic Age of American Enterprise (2 vols., 1940), took on Josephson. He argued that while Rockefeller may have engaged in some unethical and illegal business practices, this should not overshadow his bringing order to industrial chaos of the day. Gilded Age capitalists, according to Nevins, sought to impose order and stability on competitive business. Their work made the United States the foremost economy by the 20th century.[4]
This debate about the morality of big businessmen was seen as useless by Alfred Chandler in The Visible Hand (1977). Chandler contended that industrializing America was a historical process and not a play of good versus evil. As he later expressed, "What could be less likely to produce useful generalizations than a debate over vaguely defined moral issues based on unexamined ideological assumptions and presuppositions?"[5]
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[edit] List of businessmen who were called robber barons
- John Jacob Astor (real estate, fur) – New York
- Andrew Carnegie (steel) – Pittsburgh and New York
- Jay Cooke (finance) – Philadelphia
- Charles Crocker (railroads) – California
- Daniel Drew (finance) – New York
- James Buchanan Duke (tobacco) – Durham, North Carolina
- James Fisk (finance) – New York
- Henry Morrison Flagler (railroads, oil) – New York and Florida[6]
- Henry Clay Frick (steel) – Pittsburgh and New York
- John Warne Gates (barbed wire, oil) – Texas
- Jay Gould (railroads) – New York[7]
- Edward Henry Harriman (railroads) – New York[8]
- Mark Hopkins (railroads) – California
- Andrew W. Mellon (finance, oil) – Pittsburgh
- J. P. Morgan (finance, industrial consolidation) – New York
- Henry B. Plant (railroads) – Florida
- John D. Rockefeller (oil) – Cleveland, New York
- Charles M. Schwab (steel) – Pittsburgh and New York
- Joseph Seligman (banking) – New York
- John D. Spreckels (sugar) – California
- Leland Stanford (railroads) – California
- Cornelius Vanderbilt (water transport, railroads) – New York[9]
- Charles Tyson Yerkes (street railroads) – Chicago[10]
[edit] In popular culture
In popular American culture, robber barons were usually depicted as men in suits with black top hats and walking sticks as typified by Rich Uncle Pennybags, the icon for the board game Monopoly.[11]
In 1973, students at Stanford University held an election[12][13] to choose a mascot for the athletic teams and voted for Robber Barons. The university's administration refused to implement the vote, and the teams remain without an official mascot, instead being referred to as the Cardinal. (The university's colors are cardinal and white.)
Voltaire (musician), released a song titled "Robber Baron" on his album To the Bottom of the Sea in 2008. [14]
[edit] See also
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Look up robber baron in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. |
[edit] References
- ^ Worth Robert Miller, Populist cartoons: an illustrated history of the third-party movement in the 1890s (2011) p. 13
- ^ Baldwin, Lida F. (November 1907). "Unbound Old Atlantics". The Atlantic Monthly C: 683. http://books.google.com/books?id=B2wAAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA683. Retrieved 2009-07-10. (quoting the August, 1970 issue). See also "A Romance of the New Era". Harper's New Monthly Magazine LXXXIX (DXXXIV). November 1894. http://books.google.com/books?id=Y4UAAAAAYAAJ&pg=PT26. Retrieved 2009-07-10.
- ^ Matthew Josephson, The Robber Barons: The Great American Capitalists, 1861–1901, New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1934.
- ^ Allan Nevins, John D. Rockefeller: The Heroic Age of American Enterprise, 2 vols., New York, C. Scribner’s sons, 1940.
- ^ Alfred D. Chandler, "Comparative Business History," in D. C. Coleman and Peter Mathias, eds., Enterprise and History (Cambridge, 1984), 7; On Chandler's other accomplishments in this book, see Richard R. John, "Elaborations, Revisions, Dissents: Alfred D. Chandler, Jr.'s, The Visible Hand after thirty Years," Business History Review, 71, no. 2 (Summer 1997): 151–200.
- ^ David Leon Chandler, Henry Flagler: The Astonishing Life and Times of the Visionary Robber Baron Who Founded Florida (1986)
- ^ Edward Renehan, Dark Genius of Wall Street: The Misunderstood Life of Jay Gould, King of the Robber Barons (2005)
- ^ Keys, C. M. (January 1906). "The Overlords of Railroad Traffic: The Seven Men Who Reign Supreme". The World's Work: A History of Our Time XIII: 8437–8445. http://books.google.com/books?id=3IfNAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA8437. Retrieved 2009-07-10.
- ^ T. J. Stiles, The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt (2010) p 328
- ^ John Franch, Robber Baron: The Life of Charles Tyson Yerkes (2008)
- ^ Rod Kennedy and Jim Waltzer, Monopoly: The Story Behind the World's Best-Selling Game (2004)
- ^ What is the history of Stanford's mascot and nickname?
- ^ Cardinal Chronicle
- ^ http://voltaire.net/music
[edit] Further reading
- Folsom, Burton W., and Forrest McDonald, The Myth of the Robber Barons: A New Look at the Rise of Big Business in America (1991).
- Goldin, Milton. "Andrew Carnegie and the Robber Baron Myth". In Myth America: A Historical Anthology, Volume II. 1997. Gerster, Patrick, and Cords, Nicholas. (editors.) Brandywine Press, St. James, NY. ISBN 1-881-089-97-5
- Josephson, Matthew. The Robber Barons: The Great American Capitalists, 1861–1901 (1934).
