CAPTAINS OF INDUSTRY

• BY BRIAN KOREN, CONRAD WOJDASZEWICZ, MATTHEW JORDAN
• FRANCZESCO BAUTISTA TAMI CARLSON

CORNELIUS VANDERBILT

• Aka Commodore
• Wealthiest man in the U.S. at the time
• Owned steamship and railroad business
• Poor parents
• Made a lot of money with businesses

VANDERBILT (Cont.)

• Made $25 mil on the first 5 years of railroad business

ANDREW CARNEGIE

• Looked for new and cheaper ways to make steel
• Horizontal and vertical integration
• Tried to control most of the steel factories
• He sells part of his company to employes

JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER

• Rockefeller created the standard oil company
• He controlled 90% of the oil industry
• Used trusts to gain a monopoly on the oil industry
• Business tactics were not ethical
• Donated more then 500 million of his earning

WAS ROCKEFELLER A GOOD BUSINESS MAN OR DID HE CHEAT THE SYSTEM?

WHAT IS A TRUST?

• An arrangement where stockholders from different companies
• Transfer there shares to a single set of trustees
• Rockefeller joined corporations with competitors in trust agreements
• Rockefeller made too much money from it
• Government was concerned that expanding corporations would stifle competition

TRUST

• Sherman antitrust act
• Made it illegal to from a trust that interfered with free trade between states or countries
• First measure passed by U.S. Congress to prohibit trusts
• Forming a trust was one year in jail and $5,000 fine

SOCIAL DARWINISM

• Similar to Darwin's theory of "natural selection", but applied to everyday social circumstances
• Herbert Spencer came up with the idea in the 1870's
• Influenced buisness and competition
• Made the poor seem lazy and inferior
• Motivated eugenics, racism, imperialism, fascism.

SOCIAL DARWINISM

• Influenced racial and social control for power.
• What is your opinion about Social Darwinism?