John Jacob Astor - Cornelius Vanderbilt - Andrew Carnegie - John D. Rockefeller - Henry Ford - Joseph P. Kennedy - Even today, long after their deaths, the names of these six men continue to be associated with wealth and power. When they were alive, they dominated their worlds as few men had done before, and few have done since. Now in paperback, this book contains the life stories of six of the richest men who ever lived in America. Their lives offer us windows into ways of life that most of us can only imagine - an opportunity to glimpse times when laws, attitudes, prejudices, and opportunities were very different from today. Their achievements - financial, political, and social - continue to affect us to this day, for good or ill. Additionally, their mistakes still offer important lessons about the acquisition, use, and abuse of wealth and power. And had they not lived, the history of America - and the world - might have been very different indeed.
Six Tycoons : The Lives of John Jacoob Astor, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Andrew Carnegie...
Description
Table of Contents
About the author. v
Contents. vii
List of illustrations. ix
Introduction.. 1
John Jacob AStor.. 7
From Walldorf to New York. 7
The Fur Trade. 9
Astoria. 14
Manhattan Landlord. 21
Cornelius Vanderbilt.. 29
New York Harbour. 29
Gibbons v Ogden. 32
Uncle Daniel 35
To The Pacific. 39
Railroads and Corners. 41
The Erie Railroad Wars. 47
Andrew Carnegie.. 61
The Bobbin Boy. 61
Telegraphs and Railroads. 66
The Budding Capitalist 70
The Civil War and After. 73
The Panic of 1873. 82
The Industrialist 88
The Homestead Strike and its Aftermath. 96
Carnegie Steel 100
Skibo Castle and the Gospel of Wealth. 102
The Departure of Frick. 105
The Years of Philanthropy. 109
The Advocate of Peace. 113
The First World War and After. 115
John D Rockefeller.. 119
The Young Rockefeller. 119
The Oil Regions. 124
Henry Flagler and the Creation of Standard Oil 128
The Dissolution of Standard Oil 141
Rockefeller’s Philanthropies. 144
Henry Ford.. 151
The Young Mechanic. 151
The First Cars. 157
The Ford Motor Company and the Model T.. 161
The Peace Ship and the War. 173
The Dearborn Independent 181
Evangeline. 185
Changes. 186
The Last Years. 196
Joseph P Kennedy.. 203
Early Days in Boston. 203
Marriage and Money. 207
Wall Street and the New Deal 212
Ambassador to the Court of St James. 217
The War Years. 222
Politics and Tragedies. 231
Select Bibliography.. 239
Index.. 241
Author Description
About Wyn Derbyshire
Wyn Derbyshire originally trained as a research chemist, gaining a PhD from the University of Cambridge before qualifying as a lawyer. He has for many years been interested in financial history. He is writing a series of biographies of tycoons for Spiramus Press.