Due to the rise of shipping and railroads, trading and travel became faster and widely available. In this period, the men who shared the qualities of the robber barons began to rise unlike those before them. Men like Benjamin Franklin, one of their first predecessors, had lived a long time before them, but he merely displayed the character, not the revolutionary pioneering of the men of the gilded age. Samuel Slater, another of their antecedents, came to Rhode Island in the 1800s when industrialism had only begun to show itself in American business. He built cotton mills in varying places and he grew his fortune by them. These men had shown signs of the attributes of the modern robber barons, but not gained the title themselves. The Commodore,
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They are the most influential and wealthy of all the men of their era, having all the qualities it took to rise in the world that they lived in. These men include Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Jason “Jay” Gould, John P. Morgan, Jay Cooke, and Collis P. Huntington. Andrew Carnegie, a Scotsman who came to Pittsburg, Pennsylvania with his family of weavers, is renowned for his steel business. However, he started his career in a basement, as a bobbin boy. Eventually he worked himself up to the point where he obtained a job as a telegraph clerk working for Thomas Scott, the superintendent of the Pennsylvania Railroad. Because, as a telegraph clerk, he had shown drive, ability, interest and a knack for being bold, when Scott got a raise Carnegie got promoted to division superintendent at 17. Scott remained fairly close to him, advising him financially to make decisions that, in the long run, made him quite wealthy. Carnegie, partially following Scott’s advice, invested in a company, Woodruff’s Palace Car, that was helping to invent sleeping cars for railroads. In a short period of time he had gained $5000 from investing in the company. The real start of his immense wealth was striking oil; he had to do very little hands on work but nevertheless he profited off of the
They are the most influential and wealthy of all the men of their era, having all the qualities it took to rise in the world that they lived in. These men include Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Jason “Jay” Gould, John P. Morgan, Jay Cooke, and Collis P. Huntington. Andrew Carnegie, a Scotsman who came to Pittsburg, Pennsylvania with his family of weavers, is renowned for his steel business. However, he started his career in a basement, as a bobbin boy. Eventually he worked himself up to the point where he obtained a job as a telegraph clerk working for Thomas Scott, the superintendent of the Pennsylvania Railroad. Because, as a telegraph clerk, he had shown drive, ability, interest and a knack for being bold, when Scott got a raise Carnegie got promoted to division superintendent at 17. Scott remained fairly close to him, advising him financially to make decisions that, in the long run, made him quite wealthy. Carnegie, partially following Scott’s advice, invested in a company, Woodruff’s Palace Car, that was helping to invent sleeping cars for railroads. In a short period of time he had gained $5000 from investing in the company. The real start of his immense wealth was striking oil; he had to do very little hands on work but nevertheless he profited off of the