The powerful Industrialists of the gilded age are often negatively connotated, due to the deceptive behavior and questionable activities that they are known to have partaken in. Four notable men of this standing were John D. Rockefeller, monopolizer of the oil industry, Andrew Carnegie, in the steel industry, J.P. Morgan, a financier and banker, and Cornelius Vanderbilt, who was wealthy and powerful in the railroad industry and built the Transcontinental railroad. Although they were in many ways corrupt, these men were all very powerful and skilled businessmen, as well as being charitable people. They were credited with the transformation of America's Industrial and economic functioning, so it is often debated whether they should be remembered
