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Economic exchange amongst three markets and geographies

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The process of transferring plants, animals, foods, diseases, wealth, and culture between Europe and the Americas, beginning at the time of Christopher Columbus and continuing throughout the era of exploration and expansion.

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The government in Spain gave away large tracts of conquered land in Spanish America, including whole villages of indigenous peoples, to court favorites, including many conquistadores. These new landlords were supposed to educate the natives and teach them the Roman Catholic faith. The system was rife with abuse, however. Landlords rarely offered much education, preferring instead to exploit the labor of the local inhabitants, whom they treated like slaves.

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In an effort to entice English subjects to the colonies, parties would offer legal bonded contracts that would exchange the cost of passage across the Atlantic for up to seven years of labor in America.

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An economic system built on the assumption that the world's supply of wealth is fixed and that nations must export more goods than they import to assure a steady supply of gold and silver into national coffers. Mercantile thinkers saw the inflow of such wealth as the key to maintaining and enhancing national power and self-sufficiency. Within this context, the accumulation and development of colonies was of great importance, since colonies could supply scarce raw materials to parent nations and serve as markets for finished goods.

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state of human society, in which a high level of culture, science, and government has been reached.

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Colonies focused on cash crops.

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Colonies founded by the Puritans for religious purposes. Goal was to create a society as God intended.

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Colonies with a large agricultural base. Because of location they were key distribution centers in the English Mercantile System

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Total ownership of one person over another.

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Colonies founded by the Puritans for religious purposes. Goal was to create a society as God intended.

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Supporters of the Articles of Confederation, not the Constitution. They fear a tyrannical national government with too much power and strongly advocate for the Bill of Rights.

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Plan proposed by Benjamin Franklin in 1754 that aimed to unite the 13 colonies for trade, military, and other purposes; the plan was turned down by the colonies and the (British) Crown

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A proclamation from the British government which forbade British colonists from settling west of the Appalachian Mountains, and which required any settlers already living west of the mountains to move back east

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A period from the early 1600s to the mid 1700s where British Parliamentary Laws were not enforced on the colonists

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The decision to have a bicameral legislature, one house based on population, and one house with an equal number of representatives for every state.

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Supporters of the new Constitution and a strong federal government. They fear a weak government. Generally very wealthy.

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Before the American constitution, this established the United States as a loose confederation of states under a weak national Congress, which was not granted the power to regulate commerce or collect taxes

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One of the biggest accomplishments of the Articles of Confederation. This established a system for setting up governments in the western territories so they could eventually join the Union

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Near the end of the Revolutionary War, the Continental Army had not received pay for many years and threatened to abandon the fight, if they were not compensated

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A colonist who rebelled against British rule

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Determined that each slave would be counted as three fifths of a person for the purpose of apportioning taxes and representation.

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An eighteenth-century philosophical movement that began in Western Europe with roots in the Scientific Revolution

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A colonist who supported British rule

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A machine that turns the energy released by burning fuel into motion

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Group of persons organized to acquire and exercise political power

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Manufacturing businesses first created in the late eighteenth century that concentrated all aspects of production under one roof, reorganized production and divided work. The key aspect was that it was under one roof and had specialized tasks. Made the production faster and more efficient.

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The British forcibly enlisted thousands of American men into the Royal Navy from passing ships, and refused to recognize that Americans had renounced their British citizenship

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Landmark 1803 Supreme Court case in which Chief Justice John Marshall established the principle of Judicial Review, which grants the Supreme Court the power to declare laws unconstitutional

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Human-made waterways connecting natural bodies of water, very important for early travel

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Uniform pieces that can be made in large quantities to replace other identical pieces

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Movement dedicated to promoting moderation and, more often, complete abstinence in the use of alcohol

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Warned European powers not to interfere in the affairs of the Western Hemisphere

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Campaign to end slavery

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Machine invented by Samuel Morse that used a system of dots and dashes to send messages across long distances electronically through a wire. It connected the different hemispheres of the world, allowing for more communication between people.

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The fight for the suffrage (voting) for half of the population

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Pro Slavery, favored secession from Union, States' rights, agrarian-oriented, opposed gold standard, supported lowering tariff, and opposed imperialism in 1890s

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Eli Whitney’s 1793 invention that dramatically improved the speed for processing cotton, changing the trajectory of cotton production in the United States

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Opposed Jackson's strong-armed leadership style and policies, but promoted protective tariffs, federal funding for internal improvements, and other measures that strengthened the central government.

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People of a territory should themselves decide the issue of slavery

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Henry Clay introduced a series of resolutions in an attempt to seek a compromise and avert a crisis between North and South, this included that the Fugitive Slave Act was amended, the slave trade in Washington, D.C. was abolished, California entered the Union as a free state, a territorial government was created in Utah, and an act was passed settling a boundary dispute between Texas and New Mexico that also established a territorial government in New Mexico

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Freed all slaves and abolished slavery and involuntary servitude in the United States

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Passed by the U.S. Congress on May 30, 1854. It allowed people in the territories of Kansas and Nebraska to decide for themselves whether or not to allow slavery within their borders. The Act served to repeal the Missouri Compromise of 1820 which prohibited slavery north of latitude 36°30´

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When a state attempts to secede from, or leave, the nation it was once a part of

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Northern half of the country, a group of states that were generally anti-slavery

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19th century belief that Americans had the God given right to spread across the whole continent

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Granted African American men voting rights

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Granted African Americans citizenship and equal protection under the law

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Required that slaves be returned to their owners, even if they were in a free state

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Southern half of the country, a group of states trying to separate over the issue of slavery

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Loyalty or support of a particular region or section of the nation, rather than the United States as a whole

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A system of economic production based on the private ownership of property and the contractual exchange for profit of goods, labor, and money

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When writers sought to expose corruption in big business and government

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Muckraker, any of a group of American writers identified with pre- World War I reform and exposé literature. The muckrakers provided detailed, accurate journalistic accounts of the political and economic corruption and social hardships caused by the power of big business in a rapidly industrializing United States. The name muckraker was pejorative when used by U.S. Pres. Theodore Roosevelt in his speech of April 14, 1906; he borrowed a passage from John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress that referred to "the Man with the Muckrake...who could look no way but downward." But muckraker also came to take on favourable connotations of social concern and courageous exposition.

Where does the term muckraker come from?

What does the term muckraker mean?

Who was the first muckraker?

The muckrakers' work grew out of the yellow journalism of the 1890s, which whetted the public appetite for news arrestingly presented, and out of popular magazines, especially those established by S.S. McClure, Frank A. Munsey, and Peter F. Collier. The emergence of muckraking was heralded in the January 1903 issue of McClure's Magazine by articles on municipal government, labour, and trusts, written by Lincoln Steffens, Ray Stannard Baker, and Ida M. Tarbell.

Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

The intense public interest aroused by articles critical of political corruption, industrial monopolies, and fraudulent business practices rallied journalists, novelists, and reformers of all sorts to sharpen their criticism of American society. Charles Edward Russell led the reform writers with exposés ranging from The Greatest Trust in the World (1905) to The Uprising of the Many (1907), the latter of which reported on methods being tried to extend democracy in other countries. Lincoln Steffens wrote about corrupt city and state politics in The Shame of the Cities (1904). Brand Whitlock, who wrote The Turn of the Balance (1907), a novel opposing capital punishment, was also a reform mayor of Toledo, Ohio. Thomas W. Lawson, a Boston financier, provided in "Frenzied Finance" ( Everybody's, 1904-05) a major exposé of stock-market abuses and insurance fraud. Tarbell's The History of the Standard Oil Company (1904) exposed the corrupt practices used to form a great industrial monopoly. Edwin Markham's Children in Bondage was a major attack on child labour. Upton Sinclair's novel The Jungle (1906) and Samuel Hopkins Adams's The Great American Fraud (1906), combined with the work of Harvey W. Wiley and U.S. Sen. Albert J. Beveridge, brought about passage of the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act. David Graham Phillips's series "The Treason of the Senate" (Cosmopolitan, 1906), which inspired Pres. Roosevelt's speech in 1906, was influential in leading to the passage of the Seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution, which provided for popular senatorial elections. Muckraking as a movement largely disappeared between 1910 and 1912.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica This article was most recently revised and updated by Brian Duignan, Senior Editor.

Learn More in these related Britannica articles:

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muckraker | Definition, History, Examples, & Facts

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Muckraker, any of a group of American writers identified with pre-World War I reform and expose literature. The muckrakers provided detailed, accurate journalistic accounts of the political and economic corruption and social hardships caused by the power of big business in a rapidly industrializing United States.

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The railroad owner who built a railway connecting Chicago and New York. He popularized the use of steel rails in his railroad, which made railroads safer and more economical

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Cornelius Vanderbilt (May 27, 1794 - January 4, 1877), also known informally as "Commodore Vanderbilt", was an American business magnate and philanthropist who built his wealth in railroads and shipping. Born poor and having only a mediocre education, Vanderbilt used perseverance, intelligence, and luck to work his way into leadership positions in the inland water trade and invest in the rapidly growing railroad industry.

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Patterns of movement across the country, including waves of new immigrants and formerly enslaved people moving toward urban centers

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Known as the steel king; he integrated every phase of his steel-making operation.He pioneered "Vertical Integration" to improve efficiency by controlling the quality of the product at all stages of production and eliminating the middleman

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The idea that the wealthy and powerful were naturally superior and deserved their success

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Social Darwinism | Definition, Uses, & Facts

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Social Darwinism is a theory developed in the 19th century that human groups and races are subject to the same laws of natural selection as Charles Darwin perceived in plants and animals in nature. According to the theory, the weak were diminished and their cultures delimited while the strong grew i…

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A man who started from meager beginnings and eventually created an oil empire. In Ohio in 1870 he organized the Standard Oil Company. By 1877 he controlled 95% of all of the refineries in the United States

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John Davison Rockefeller Sr. (July 8, 1839 - May 23, 1937) was an American business magnate and philanthropist. He was one of the wealthiest Americans of all time and one of the richest people in modern history. Rockefeller was born into a large family in Upstate New York who moved several times before eventually settling in Cleveland, Ohio. He became an assistant bookkeeper at age 16 and went into several business partnerships beginning at age 20, concentrating his business on oil refining. Rockefeller founded the Standard Oil Company in 1870. He ran it until 1897 and remained its largest shareholder. In his retirement, he focused his energy and wealth on philanthropy, especially regarding education, medicine, higher education, and modernizing the American South.

Rockefeller's wealth soared as kerosene and gasoline grew in importance, and he became the richest person in the country, controlling 90% of all oil in the United States at his peak in 1900. Oil was used in lamps, and as a fuel for ships and automobiles. Standard Oil was the greatest business trust in the United States. Through use of the company's monopoly power, Rockefeller revolutionized the petroleum industry and, through corporate and technological innovations, was instrumental in both widely disseminating and drastically reducing the production cost of oil.

Rockefeller's company and business practices came under criticism, particularly in the writings of author Ida Tarbell. The Supreme Court ruled in 1911 that Standard Oil must be dismantled for violation of federal antitrust laws. It was broken up into 34 separate entities, which included companies that became ExxonMobil, Chevron Corporation, and others-some of which remain among the largest companies by revenue worldwide. Consequently, Rockefeller became the country's first billionaire, with a fortune worth nearly 2% of the national economy. His personal wealth was estimated in 1913 at $900 million, which was almost 3% of the US gross domestic product (GDP) of $39.1 billion that year.

Rockefeller spent much of the last 40 years of his life in retirement at Kykuit, his estate in Westchester County, New York, defining the structure of modern philanthropy, along with other key industrialists such as Andrew Carnegie. His fortune was used chiefly to create the modern systematic approach of targeted philanthropy through the creation of foundations that supported medicine, education, and scientific research. His foundations pioneered developments in medical research and were instrumental in the near-eradication of hookworm in the American South, and yellow fever in the United States. He and Carnegie gave form and impetus through their charities to the work of Abraham Flexner, who in his essay "Medical Education in America" emphatically endowed empiricism as the basis for the US medical system of the 20th century.

Rockefeller was the founder of the University of Chicago and Rockefeller University, and funded the establishment of Central Philippine University in the Philippines. He was a devout Northern Baptist and supported many church-based institutions. He adhered to total abstinence from alcohol and tobacco throughout his life. For advice, he relied closely on his wife, Laura Spelman Rockefeller: they had four daughters and a son together. He was a faithful congregant of the Erie Street Baptist Mission Church, taught Sunday school, and served as a trustee, clerk, and occasional janitor. Religion was a guiding force throughout his life, and he believed it to be the source of his success. Rockefeller was also considered a supporter of capitalism based on a perspective of social Darwinism, and he was quoted often as saying, "The growth of a large business is merely a survival of the fittest."

Rockefeller was the second of six children born in Richford, New York, to con artist William A. Rockefeller Sr. and Eliza Davison. Rockefeller had an elder sister named Lucy and four younger siblings: William Jr., Mary, and fraternal twins Franklin (Frank) and Frances. His father was of English and German descent, while his mother was of Ulster Scot descent. One source says that some ancestors were Huguenots, the Roquefeuille family, who fled to Germany from France during the reign of Louis XIV and a period of religious persecution. By the time their descendants immigrated to North America, their name had taken German form. William Sr. worked first as a lumberman and then a traveling salesman. He claimed to be a "botanic physician" who sold elixirs, and was described by locals as "Big Bill" and "Devil Bill." Unshackled by conventional morality, he led a vagabond existence and returned to his family infrequently. Throughout his life, Bill was notorious for conducting schemes. In between the births of Lucy and John, Bill and his mistress and housekeeper Nancy Brown had a daughter named Clorinda, who died young. Between John and William Jr.'s births, Bill and Nancy had another daughter, named Cornelia.

Eliza was a homemaker and a devout Baptist who struggled to maintain a semblance of stability at home, as Bill was frequently gone for extended periods. She also put up with his philandering and his double life, which included bigamy. He permanently abandoned his family around 1855 and lived with second wife, Margaret L. Allen.

Eliza was thrifty by nature and by necessity, and she taught her son that "willful waste makes woeful want". John did his share of the regular household chores and earned extra money raising turkeys, selling potatoes and candy, and eventually lending small sums of money to neighbors. He followed his father's advice to "trade dishes for platters" and always get the better part of any deal. Bill once bragged, "I cheat my boys every chance I get. I want to make 'em sharp." However, his mother was more influential in John's upbringing and beyond, while he distanced himself further and further from his father as his life progressed. He later stated, "From the beginning, I was trained to work, to save, and to give."

When he was a boy, his family moved to Moravia, New York, and to Owego, New York, in 1851, where he attended Owego Academy. In 1853, his family moved to Strongsville, Ohio, and he attended Cleveland's Central High School, the first high school in Cleveland and the first free public high school west of the Alleghenies. Then he took a ten-week business course at Folsom's Commercial College, where he studied bookkeeping. Rockefeller was a well-behaved, serious, and studious boy despite his father's absences and frequent family moves. His contemporaries described him as reserved, earnest, religious, methodical, and discreet. He was an excellent debater and expressed himself precisely. He also had a deep love of music and dreamed of it as a possible career.

Pre-Standard Oil career

As a bookkeeper

In September 1855, when Rockefeller was sixteen, he got his first job as an assistant bookkeeper working for a small produce commission firm in Cleveland called Hewitt & Tuttle. He worked long hours and delighted, as he later recalled, in "all the methods and systems of the office." He was particularly adept at calculating transportation costs, which served him well later in his career. Much of Rockefeller's duties involved negotiating with barge canal owners, ship captains, and freight agents. In these negotiations, he learned that posted transportation rates that were believed to be fixed could be altered depending on conditions and timing of freight and through the use of rebates to preferred shippers. Rockefeller was also given the duties of collecting debts when Hewitt instructed him to do so. Instead of using his father's method of presence to collect debts, Rockefeller relied on a persistent pestering approach. Rockefeller received $16 a month for his three-month apprenticeship. During his first year, he received $31 a month, which was increased to $50 a month. His final year provided him $58 a month.

Business partnership and Civil War service

In 1859, Rockefeller went into the produce commission business with two partners, Maurice B. Clark and George W. Gardner, under Clark, Gardner & Company, and they raised $4,000 ($135,644 in 2023 dollars) in capital. Clark initiated the idea of the partnership and offered $2,000 towards the goal. Rockefeller had only $800 saved up at the time and so borrowed $1,000 from his father, "Big Bill" Rockefeller, at 10 percent interest. Rockefeller went steadily ahead in business from there, making money each year of his career. In their first and second years of business, Clark, Gardner & Rockefeller netted $4,400 (on nearly half a million dollars in business) and $17,000 worth of profit, respectively, and their profits soared with the outbreak of the American Civil War when the Union Army called for massive amounts of food and supplies. During the second year of the American Civil War, Gardner withdrew from the business, and the firm became Clark & Rockefeller.

When the Civil War was nearing a close and with the prospect of those war-time profits ending, Clark & Rockefeller looked toward the refining of crude oil. While his brother Frank fought in the Civil War, Rockefeller tended his business and hired substitute soldiers. He gave money to the Union cause, as did many rich Northerners who avoided combat. "I wanted to go in the army and do my part," Rockefeller said. "But it was simply out of the question. There was no one to take my place. We were in a new business, and if I had not stayed it must have stopped-and with so many dependent on it."

Rockefeller was an abolitionist who voted for President Abraham Lincoln and supported the then-new Republican Party. As he said, "God gave me money", and he did not apologize for it. He felt at ease and righteous following Methodist preacher John Wesley's dictum, "gain all you can, save all you can, and give all you can." During the Civil War, military consumption of oil drove the price up from $.35 a barrel in 1862 to as high as $13.75. This created an oil-drilling glut, with thousands of speculators attempting to make their fortunes. Most failed, but those who struck oil did not even need to be efficient. They would blow holes in the ground and gather up the oil as they could, often leading to creeks and rivers flowing with wasted oil in the place of water.

A market existed for the refined oil in the form of kerosene. Coal had previously been used to extract kerosene, but its tedious extraction process and high price prevented broad use. Even with the high costs of freight transportation and a government levy during the Civil War (the government levied a tax of twenty cents a gallon on refined oil), profits on the refined product were large. The price of the refined oil in 1863 was around $13 a barrel, with a profit margin of around $5 to $8 a barrel. The capital expenditures for a refinery at that time were small - around $1,000 to $1,500 and requiring only a few men to operate. In this environment of a wasteful boom, the partners switched from foodstuffs to oil, building an oil refinery in 1863 in " The Flats", then Cleveland's burgeoning industrial area. The refinery was directly owned by Andrews, Clark & Company, which was composed of Clark & Rockefeller, chemist Samuel Andrews, and M. B. Clark's two brothers. The commercial oil business was then in its infancy. Whale oil had become too expensive for the masses, and a cheaper, general-purpose lighting fuel was needed.

While other refineries would keep the 60% of oil product that became kerosene, but dump the other 40% in rivers and massive sludge piles, Rockefeller used the gasoline to fuel the refinery, and sold the rest as lubricating oil, petroleum jelly and paraffin wax, and other by-products. Tar was used for paving, naphtha shipped to gas plants. Likewise, Rockefeller's refineries hired their own plumbers, cutting the cost of pipe-laying in half. Barrels that cost $2.50 each ended up only $0.96 when Rockefeller bought the wood and had them built for himself. In February 1865, in what was later described by oil industry historian Daniel Yergin as a "critical" action, Rockefeller bought out the Clark brothers for $72,500 (equivalent to $1 million in 2023 dollars) at auction and established the firm of Rockefeller & Andrews. Rockefeller said, "It was the day that determined my career." He was well-positioned to take advantage of postwar prosperity and the great expansion westward fostered by the growth of railroads and an oil-fueled economy. He borrowed heavily, reinvested profits, adapted rapidly to changing markets, and fielded observers to track the quickly expanding industry.

Beginning in the oil business

In 1866, William Rockefeller Jr., John's brother, built another refinery in Cleveland and brought John into the partnership. In 1867, Henry Morrison Flagler became a partner, and the firm of Rockefeller, Andrews & Flagler was established. By 1868, with Rockefeller continuing practices of borrowing and reinvesting profits, controlling costs, and using refineries' waste, the company owned two Cleveland refineries and a marketing subsidiary in New York; it was the largest oil refinery in the world. Rockefeller, Andrews & Flagler was the predecessor of the Standard Oil Company.

Standard Oil

Founding and early growth

Rockefeller c. 1872, shortly after founding Standard Oil

By the end of the American Civil War, Cleveland was one of the five main refining centers in the U.S. (besides Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, New York, and the region in northwestern Pennsylvania where most of the oil originated). By 1869 there was triple the kerosene refining capacity than needed to supply the market, and the capacity remained in excess for many years.

On January 10, 1870, Rockefeller abolished the partnership of Rockefeller, Andrews & Flagler, forming Standard Oil of Ohio. Continuing to apply his work ethic and efficiency, Rockefeller quickly expanded the company to be the most profitable refiner in Ohio. Likewise, it became one of the largest shippers of oil and kerosene in the country. The railroads competed fiercely for traffic and, in an attempt to create a cartel to control freight rates, formed the South Improvement Company offering special deals to bulk customers like Standard Oil, outside the main oil centers. The cartel offered preferential treatment as a high-volume shipper, which included not just steep discounts/rebates of up to 50% for their product but rebates for the shipment of competing products.

Share of the Standard Oil Company, issued May 1, 1878[61]

Part of this scheme was the announcement of sharply increased freight charges. This touched off a firestorm of protest from independent oil well owners, including boycotts and vandalism, which led to the discovery of Standard Oil's part in the deal. A major New York refiner, Charles Pratt and Company, headed by Charles Pratt and Henry H. Rogers, led the opposition to this plan, and railroads soon backed off. Pennsylvania revoked the cartel's charter, and non-preferential rates were restored for the time being. While competitors may have been unhappy, Rockefeller's efforts did bring American consumers cheaper kerosene and other oil by-products. Before 1870, oil light was only for the wealthy, provided by expensive whale oil. During the next decade, kerosene became commonly available to the working and middle classes.

Undeterred, though vilified for the first time by the press, Rockefeller continued with his self-reinforcing cycle of buying the least efficient competing refiners, improving the efficiency of his operations, pressing for discounts on oil shipments, undercutting his competition, making secret deals, raising investment pools, and buying rivals out. In less than four months in 1872, in what was later known as "The Cleveland Conquest" or "The Cleveland Massacre", Standard Oil absorbed 22 of its 26 Cleveland competitors. Eventually, even his former antagonists, Pratt and Rogers, saw the futility of continuing to compete against Standard Oil; in 1874, they made a secret agreement with Rockefeller to be acquired.

Pratt and Rogers became Rockefeller's partners. Rogers, in particular, became one of Rockefeller's key men in the formation of the Standard Oil Trust. Pratt's son, Charles Millard Pratt, became secretary of Standard Oil. For many of his competitors, Rockefeller had merely to show them his books so they could see what they were up against and then make them a decent offer. If they refused his offer, he told them he would run them into bankruptcy and then cheaply buy up their assets at auction. However, he did not intend to eliminate competition entirely. In fact, his partner Pratt said of that accusation "Competitors we must have ... If we absorb them, it surely will bring up another."

Instead of wanting to eliminate them, Rockefeller saw himself as the industry's savior, "an angel of mercy" absorbing the weak and making the industry as a whole stronger, more efficient, and more competitive. Standard was growing horizontally and vertically. It added its own pipelines, tank cars, and home delivery network. It kept oil prices low to stave off competitors, made its products affordable to the average household, and, to increase market penetration, sometimes sold below cost. It developed over 300 oil-based products from tar to paint to petroleum jelly to chewing gum. By the end of the 1870s, Standard was refining over 90% of the oil in the U.S. Rockefeller had already become a millionaire ($1 million is equivalent to $32 million in 2023 dollars).

He instinctively realized that orderliness would only proceed from centralized control of large aggregations of plant and capital, with the one aim of an orderly flow of products from the producer to the consumer. That orderly, economic, efficient flow is what we now, many years later, call ' vertical integration' I do not know whether Mr. Rockefeller ever used the word 'integration'. I only know he conceived the idea.

-  A Standard Oil of Ohio successor of Rockefeller.

In 1877, Standard clashed with Thomas A. Scott, the president of the Pennsylvania Railroad, Standard's chief hauler. Rockefeller envisioned pipelines as an alternative transport system for oil and began a campaign to build and acquire them. The railroad, seeing Standard's incursion into the transportation and pipeline fields, struck back and formed a subsidiary to buy and build oil refineries and pipelines.

All the fortune that I have made has not served to compensate me for the anxiety of that period.

Although it always had hundreds of competitors, Standard Oil gradually gained dominance of oil refining and sales as market share in the United States through horizontal integration, ending up with about 90% of the US market. In the kerosene industry, the company replaced the old distribution system with its own vertical system. It supplied kerosene by tank cars that brought the fuel to local markets, and tank wagons then delivered to retail customers, thus bypassing the existing network of wholesale jobbers. Despite improving the quality and availability of kerosene products while greatly reducing their cost to the public (the price of kerosene dropped by nearly 80% over the life of the company), Standard Oil's business practices created intense controversy. Standard's most potent weapons against competitors were underselling, differential pricing, and secret transportation rebates.

The firm was attacked by journalists and politicians throughout its existence, in part for these monopolistic methods, giving momentum to the antitrust movement. In 1879, the New York State Legislature's Hepburn Committee investigations into "alleged abuses" committed by the railroads uncovered the fact that Standard Oil was receiving substantial freight rebates on all of the oil it was transporting by railroad - and was crushing Standard's competitors thereby. By 1880, according to the New York World, Standard Oil was "the most cruel, impudent, pitiless, and grasping monopoly that ever fastened upon a country". To critics, Rockefeller replied, "In a business so large as ours ... some things are likely to be done which we cannot approve. We correct them as soon as they come to our knowledge."

At that time, many legislatures had made it difficult to incorporate in one state and operate in another. As a result, Rockefeller and his associates owned dozens of separate corporations, each of which operated in just one state; the management of the whole enterprise was rather unwieldy. In 1882, Rockefeller's lawyers created an innovative form of corporation to centralize their holdings, giving birth to the Standard Oil Trust. The " trust" was a corporation of corporations, and the entity's size and wealth drew much attention. Nine trustees, including Rockefeller, ran the 41 companies in the trust. The public and the press were immediately suspicious of this new legal entity, and other businesses seized upon the idea and emulated it, further inflaming public sentiment. Standard Oil had gained an aura of invincibility, always prevailing against competitors, critics, and political enemies. It had become the richest, biggest, most feared business in the world, seemingly immune to the boom and bust of the business cycle, consistently making profits year after year.

The big corporations such as Standard Oil made large contributions to McKinley's presidential campaign, managed by Mark Hanna.

The company's vast American empire included 20,000 domestic wells, 4,000 miles of pipeline, 5,000 tank cars, and over 100,000 employees. Its share of world oil refining topped out above 90% but slowly dropped to about 80% for the rest of the century. Despite the formation of the trust and its perceived immunity from all competition, by the 1880s Standard Oil had passed its peak of power over the world oil market. Rockefeller finally gave up his dream of controlling all the world's oil refining; he admitted later, "We realized that public sentiment would be against us if we actually refined all the oil." Over time, foreign competition and new finds abroad eroded his dominance. In the early 1880s, Rockefeller created one of his most important innovations. Rather than try to influence the price of crude oil directly, Standard Oil had been exercising indirect control by altering oil storage charges to suit market conditions. Rockefeller then ordered the issuance of certificates against oil stored in its pipelines. These certificates became traded by speculators, thus creating the first oil-futures market which effectively set spot market prices from then on. The National Petroleum Exchange opened in Manhattan in late 1882 to facilitate the trading of oil futures.

Although 85% of world crude production was still coming from Pennsylvania in the 1880s, oil from wells drilled in Russia and Asia began to reach the world market. Robert Nobel had established his own refining enterprise in the abundant and cheaper Russian oil fields, including the region's first pipeline and the world's first oil tanker. The Paris Rothschilds jumped into the fray providing financing. Additional fields were discovered in Burma and Java. Even more critical, the invention of the light bulb gradually began to erode the dominance of kerosene for illumination. Standard Oil adapted by developing a European presence, expanding into natural gas production in the U.S., and then producing gasoline for automobiles, which until then had been considered a waste product.

Standard Oil moved its headquarters to New York City at 26 Broadway, and Rockefeller became a central figure in the city's business community. He bought a residence in 1884 on 54th Street near the mansions of other magnates such as William Henry Vanderbilt. Despite personal threats and constant pleas for charity, Rockefeller took the new elevated train to his downtown office daily. In 1887, Congress created the Interstate Commerce Commission which was tasked with enforcing equal rates for all railroad freight, but by then Standard depended more on pipeline transport. More threatening to Standard's power was the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, originally used to control unions, but later central to the breakup of the Standard Oil trust. Ohio was especially vigorous in applying its state antitrust laws, and finally forced a separation of Standard Oil of Ohio from the rest of the company in 1892, the first step in the dissolution of the trust.

Rockefeller as an industrial emperor, 1901 cartoon from Puck magazine

In the 1890s, Rockefeller expanded into iron ore and ore transportation, forcing a collision with steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, and their competition became a major subject of the newspapers and cartoonists. He went on a massive buying spree acquiring leases for crude oil production in Ohio, Indiana, and West Virginia, as the original Pennsylvania oil fields began to play out. Amid the frenetic expansion, Rockefeller began to think of retirement. The daily management of the trust was turned over to John Dustin Archbold and Rockefeller bought a new estate, Pocantico Hills, north of New York City, turning more time to leisure activities including the new sports of bicycling and golf.

Puck magazine cartoon: "The Infant Hercules and the Standard Oil serpents", May 23, 1906, issue; depicting U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt grabbing the head of Nelson W. Aldrich and the snake-like body of John D. Rockefeller

Upon his ascent to the presidency, Theodore Roosevelt initiated dozens of suits under the Sherman Antitrust Act and coaxed reforms out of Congress. In 1901, U.S. Steel, then controlled by J. Pierpont Morgan, having bought Andrew Carnegie's steel assets, offered to buy Standard's iron interests as well. A deal brokered by Henry Clay Frick exchanged Standard's iron interests for U.S. Steel stock and gave Rockefeller and his son membership on the company's board of directors. In full retirement at age 63, Rockefeller earned over $58 million (~$1.65 billion in 2023) in investments in 1902. One of the most effective attacks on Rockefeller and his firm was the 1904 publication ofThe History of the Standard Oil Company, by Ida Tarbell, a leading muckraker. She documented the company's espionage, price wars, heavy-handed marketing tactics, and courtroom evasions. Although her work prompted a huge backlash against the company, Tarbell stated she was surprised at its magnitude. "I never had an animus against their size and wealth, never objected to their corporate form. I was willing that they should combine and grow as big and wealthy as they could, but only by legitimate means. But they had never played fair, and that ruined their greatness for me." Tarbell's father had been driven out of the oil business during the " South Improvement Company" affair. Rockefeller called her "Miss Tarbarrel" in private but held back in public saying only, "not a word about that misguided woman." He began a publicity campaign to put his company and himself in a better light. Though he had long maintained a policy of active silence with the press, he decided to make himself more accessible and responded with conciliatory comments such as "capital and labor are both wild forces which require intelligent legislation to hold them in restriction." He wrote and published his memoirs beginning in 1908. Critics found his writing to be sanitized and disingenuous and thought that statements such as "the underlying, essential element of success in business are to follow the established laws of high-class dealing" seemed to be at odds with his true business methods.

Rockefeller and his son continued to consolidate their oil interests as best they could until New Jersey, in 1909, changed its incorporation laws to effectively allow a re-creation of the trust in the form of a single holding company. Rockefeller retained his nominal title as president until 1911 and he kept his stock. At last in 1911, the Supreme Court of the United States found Standard Oil Company of New Jersey in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. By then the trust still had a 70% market share of the refined oil market but only 14% of the U.S. crude oil supply. The court ruled that the trust originated in illegal monopoly practices and ordered it to be broken up into 34 new companies. These included, among many others, Continental Oil, which became Conoco, now part of ConocoPhillips; Standard of Indiana, which became Amoco, now part of BP; Standard of California, which became Chevron; Standard of New Jersey, which became Esso (and later, Exxon), now part of ExxonMobil; Standard of New York, which became Mobil, now part of ExxonMobil; and Standard of Ohio, which became Sohio, now part of BP. Pennzoil and Chevron have remained separate companies.

Rockefeller c. 1914. By then, his moustache had fallen off due to alopecia.

Colorado Fuel and Iron

In 1902, facing cash flow problems, John Cleveland Osgood turned to George Jay Gould, a principal stockholder of the Denver and Rio Grande, for a loan. Gould, via Frederick Taylor Gates, Rockefeller's financial adviser, brought John D. Rockefeller in to help finance the loan. Analysis of the company's operations by John D. Rockefeller Jr. showed a need for substantially more funds which were provided in exchange for acquisition of CF&I's subsidiaries such as the Colorado and Wyoming Railway Company, the Crystal River Railroad Company, and possibly the Rocky Mountain Coal and Iron Company. Control was passed from the Iowa Group to Gould and Rockefeller interests in 1903 with Gould in control and Rockefeller and Gates representing a minority interests. Osgood left the company in 1904 and devoted his efforts to operating competing coal and coke operations.

Strike of 1913-14 and the Ludlow Massacre

The strike, called in September 1913 by the United Mine Workers over the issue of union representation, was against coal mine operators in Huerfano and Las Animas counties of southern Colorado, where the majority of CF&I's coal and coke production was located. The strike was fought vigorously by the coal mine operators association and its steering committee, which included Welborn, president of CF&I, a spokesman for the coal operators. Rockefeller's operative, Lamont Montgomery Bowers, remained in the background. Few miners belonged to the union or participated in the strike call, but the majority honored it. Strikebreakers (called "scabs") were threatened and sometimes attacked. Both sides purchased substantial arms and ammunition. Striking miners were forced to abandon their homes in company towns and lived in tent cities erected by the union, such as the tent city at Ludlow, a railway stop north of Trinidad.

Rockefeller denied any responsibility and minimized the seriousness of the event. When testifying on the Ludlow Massacre, and asked what action he would have taken as Director, John D. Rockefeller Jr. stated, "I would have taken no action. I would have deplored the necessity which compelled the officers of the company to resort to such measures to supplement the State forces to maintain law and order." He admitted that he had made no attempt to bring the militiamen to justice.

Personal life

Against long-circulating speculations that his family has French roots, genealogists proved the German origin of Rockefeller and traced them to the early 17th century. Johann Peter Rockenfeller (baptized September 27, 1682, in the Protestant church of Rengsdorf) immigrated in 1723 from Altwied (today a district of Neuwied, Rhineland-Palatinate) with three children to North America. He settled in Germantown, Pennsylvania.

The name Rockenfeller refers to the now-abandoned village of Rockenfeld in the district of Neuwied.

Kykuit in Westchester County, New York, where Rockefeller spent his retirement. It has been home to four generations of the Rockefeller family.

Elizabeth "Bessie" Rockefeller (August 23, 1866 - November 14, 1906)

Alice Rockefeller (July 14, 1869 - August 20, 1870)

Alta Rockefeller (April 12, 1871 - June 21, 1962)

Edith Rockefeller (August 31, 1872 - August 25, 1932)

John Davison Rockefeller Jr. (January 29, 1874 - May 11, 1960)

The Rockefeller wealth, distributed as it was through a system of foundations and trusts, continued to fund family philanthropic, commercial, and, eventually, political aspirations throughout the 20th century. John Jr.'s youngest son David Rockefeller was a leading New York banker, serving for over 20 years as CEO of Chase Manhattan (now part of JPMorgan Chase). Second son Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller was Republican governor of New York and the 41st Vice President of the United States. Fourth son Winthrop Aldrich Rockefeller served as Republican Governor of Arkansas. Grandchildren Abigail Aldrich "Abby" Rockefeller and John Davison Rockefeller III became philanthropists. Grandson Laurance Spelman Rockefeller became a conservationist. Great-grandson John Davison "Jay" Rockefeller IV served from 1985 until 2015 as a Democratic Senator from West Virginia after serving as governor of West Virginia, and another Winthrop served as lieutenant governor of Arkansas for a decade.

Religious views

John D. Rockefeller was born in Richford, New York, then part of the Burned-over district, a New York state region that became the site of an evangelical revival known as the Second Great Awakening. It drew masses to various Protestant churches-especially Baptist ones-and urged believers to follow such ideals as hard work, prayer, and good deeds to build "the Kingdom of God on Earth." Early in his life, he regularly went with his siblings and mother Eliza to the local Baptist church-the Erie Street Baptist Church (later the Euclid Avenue Baptist Church)-an independent Baptist church that eventually associated with the Northern Baptist Convention (1907-1950; now part of the modern American Baptist Churches USA).

A devout Northern Baptist, Rockefeller would read the Bible daily, attend prayer meetings twice a week and led his own Bible study with his wife. Burton Folsom Jr. has noted:

[H]e sometimes gave tens of thousands of dollars to Christian groups, while, at the same time, he was trying to borrow over a million dollars to expand his business. His philosophy of giving was founded upon biblical principles. He truly believed in the biblical principle found in Luke 6:38, "Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you."

Rockefeller would support Baptist missionary activity, fund universities, and deeply engage in religious activities at his Cleveland, Ohio, church. While traveling the South, he would donate large sums of money to churches belonging to the Southern Baptist Convention, various Black churches, and other Christian denominations. He paid toward the freedom of two slaves and donated to a Roman Catholic orphanage. As he grew rich, his donations became more generous, especially to his church in Cleveland. Believed to be obsolescent, the church was demolished in 1925, and replaced with a new building.

Philanthropy

Rockefeller's charitable giving began with his first job as a clerk at age 16, when he gave six percent of his earnings to charity, as recorded in his personal ledger. By the time he was twenty, his charity exceeded ten percent of his income. Much of his giving was church-related. His church was later affiliated with the Northern Baptist Convention, which formed from American Baptists in the North with ties to their historic missions to establish schools and colleges for freedmen in the South after the American Civil War. Rockefeller attended Baptist churches every Sunday; when traveling he would often attend services at African-American Baptist congregations, leaving a substantial donation. As Rockefeller's wealth grew, so did his giving, primarily to educational and public health causes, but also for basic science and the arts. He was advised primarily by Frederick Taylor Gates after 1891, and, after 1897, also by his son.

Rockefeller and his advisers invented the conditional grant, which required the recipient to "root the institution in the affections of as many people as possible who, as contributors, become personally concerned, and thereafter may be counted on to give to the institution their watchful interest and cooperation".

In 1884, Rockefeller provided major funding for Atlanta Baptist Female Seminary in Atlanta for African-American women, which became Spelman College. His wife Laura Spelman Rockefeller, was dedicated to civil rights and equality for women. John and Laura donated money and supported the Atlanta Baptist Female Seminary whose mission was in line with their faith based beliefs. Today known as Spelman College, the school is an all women Historically Black College or University in Atlanta, Georgia, named after Laura's family. The Spelman Family, Rockefeller's in-laws, along with John Rockefeller were ardent abolitionists before the Civil War and were dedicated to supporting the Underground Railroad. John Rockefeller was impressed by the vision of the school and removed the debt from the school. The oldest existing building on Spelman's campus, Rockefeller Hall, is named after him. Rockefeller also gave considerable donations to Denison University and other Baptist colleges.

Central Philippine University in the Iloilo City was founded by the American Baptist missionaries through the benevolence as a legacy university of John D. Rockefeller in 1905. It is the first Baptist and second American university in Asia.

Rockefeller gave $80 million (~$2.41 billion in 2023) to the University of Chicago under William Rainey Harper, turning a small Baptist college into a world-class institution by 1900. He would describe the University of Chicago as "the best investment I ever made." He also gave a grant to the American Baptist Missionaries foreign mission board, the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society in establishing Central Philippine University, the first Baptist and second American university in Asia, in 1905 in the heavily Catholic Philippines.

Rockefeller's General Education Board, founded in 1903, was established to promote education at all levels everywhere in the country. In keeping with the historic missions of the Baptists, it was especially active in supporting black schools in the South. Rockefeller also provided financial support to such established eastern institutions as Yale, Harvard, Columbia, Brown, Bryn Mawr, Wellesley and Vassar. On Gates' advice, Rockefeller became one of the first great benefactors of medical science. In 1901, he founded the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research in New York City. It changed its name to Rockefeller University in 1965, after expanding its mission to include graduate education. It claims a connection to 23 Nobel laureates. He founded the Rockefeller Sanitary Commission in 1909, an organization that eventually eradicated the hookworm disease, which had long plagued rural areas of the American South. His General Education Board made a dramatic impact by funding the recommendations of the Flexner Report of 1910. The study, an excerpt of which was published in The Atlantic, had been undertaken by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research in New York City, c. 1912

Rockefeller created the Rockefeller Foundation in 1913 to continue and expand the scope of the work of the Sanitary Commission, which was closed in 1915. He gave $182 million to the foundation, which focused on public health, medical training, and the arts. It endowed Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, the first of its kind. It also built the Peking Union Medical College in China into a notable institution. The foundation helped in World War I war relief, and it employed William Lyon Mackenzie King of Canada to study industrial relations.

Rockefeller became well known in his later life for the practice of giving dimes to adults and nickels to children wherever he went. He even gave dimes as a playful gesture to wealthy men, such as tire mogul Harvey Firestone.

Rockefeller supported the passage of the 18th Amendment, which banned alcohol in the United States. He wrote in a letter to Nicholas Murray Butler on June 6, 1932, that neither Rockefeller nor his parents or his father's father and mother's mother drank alcohol. In the same letter, Rockefeller writes that he has "always stood for whatever measure seemed at the time to give promise of promoting temperance." He believed that measure to be prohibition, as he and his father donated $350,000 to "all branches of the Anti-Saloon League, Federal and State." But by 1932, Rockefeller felt disillusioned by prohibition because of its failure to discourage drinking and alcoholism. He supported the incorporation of repealing the 18th amendment into the Republican party platform.

Florida home

Henry Morrison Flagler, one of the co-founders of Standard Oil along with Rockefeller, bought the Ormond Hotel in 1890, located in Ormond Beach, Florida, two years after it opened. Flagler expanded it to accommodate 600 guests and the hotel soon became one in a series of Gilded Age hotels catering to passengers aboard Flagler's Florida East Coast Railway. One of Flagler's guests at the Ormond Hotel was his former business partner John D. Rockefeller, who first stayed at the hotel in 1914. Rockefeller liked the Ormond Beach area so much that after four seasons at the hotel, he bought an estate in Ormond Beach called The Casements. It would be Rockefeller's winter home during the latter part of his life. Sold by his heirs in 1939, it was purchased by the city in 1974 and now serves as a cultural center and is the community's best-known historical structure.

Illnesses and death

In his 50s Rockefeller suffered from moderate depression and digestive troubles; during a stressful period in the 1890s he developed alopecia, the loss of some or all body hair. By 1901 he began wearing toupées and by 1902, his mustache disappeared. His hair never grew back, but other health complaints subsided as he lightened his workload.

Rockefeller died of arteriosclerosis on May 23, 1937, less than two months shy of his 98th birthday, at " The Casements", his home in Ormond Beach, Florida. He was buried in Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland.

Rockefeller had a long and controversial career in the oil industry followed by a long career in philanthropy. His image is an amalgam of all of these experiences and the many ways he was viewed by his contemporaries. These contemporaries include his former competitors, many of whom were driven to ruin, but many others of whom sold out at a profit (or a profitable stake in Standard Oil, as Rockefeller often offered his shares as payment for a business), and quite a few of whom became very wealthy as managers as well as owners in Standard Oil. They include politicians and writers, some of whom served Rockefeller's interests, and some of whom built their careers by fighting Rockefeller and the " robber barons".

Biographer Allan Nevins, answering Rockefeller's enemies, concluded:

The rise of the Standard Oil men to great wealth was not from poverty. It was not meteor-like, but accomplished over a quarter of a century by courageous venturing in a field so risky that most large capitalists avoided it, by arduous labors, and by more sagacious and farsighted planning than had been applied to any other American industry. The oil fortunes of 1894 were not larger than steel fortunes, banking fortunes, and railroad fortunes made in similar periods. But it is the assertion that the Standard magnates gained their wealth by appropriating "the property of others" that most challenges our attention. We have abundant evidence that Rockefeller's consistent policy was to offer fair terms to competitors and to buy them out, for cash, stock, or both, at fair appraisals; we have the statement of one impartial historian that Rockefeller was decidedly "more humane toward competitors" than Carnegie; we have the conclusion of another that his wealth was "the least tainted of all the great fortunes of his day."

Hostile critics often portrayed Rockefeller as a villain with a suite of bad traits-ruthless, unscrupulous and greedy-and as a bully who connived his cruel path to dominance. Economic historian Robert Whaples warns against ignoring the secrets of his business success:

[R]elentless cost cutting and efficiency improvements, boldness in betting on the long-term prospects of the industry while others were willing to take quick profits, and impressive abilities to spot and reward talent, delegate tasks, and manage a growing empire.

What makes him problematic-and why he continues to inspire ambivalent reactions-is that his good side was every bit as good as his bad side was bad. Seldom has history produced such a contradictory figure.

His wealth continued to grow significantly (in line with U.S. economic growth) as the demand for gasoline soared, eventually reaching about $900 million on the eve of the First World War, including significant interests in banking, shipping, mining, railroads, and other industries. His personal wealth was 900 million in 1913 worth 23.5 billion dollars adjusted for inflation in 2020. According to his New York Times obituary, "it was estimated after Mr. Rockefeller retired from business that he had accumulated close to $1,500,000,000 out of the earnings of the Standard Oil trust and out of his other investments. This was probably the greatest amount of wealth that any private citizen had ever been able to accumulate by his own efforts." By the time of his death in 1937, Rockefeller's remaining fortune, largely tied up in permanent family trusts, was estimated at $1.4 billion, while the total national GDP was $92 billion. According to some methods of wealth calculation, Rockefeller's net worth over the last decades of his life would easily place him as the wealthiest known person in recent history. As a percentage of the United States' GDP, no other American fortune-including those of Bill Gates or Sam Walton -would even come close.

Rockefeller, aged 86, wrote the following words to sum up his life:

I was early taught to work as well as play,
My life has been one long, happy holiday;
Full of work and full of play-
I dropped the worry on the way-
And God was good to me everyday.

Explanatory notes

General bibliography

Online via Internet Archive

Collier, Peter; Horowitz, David (1976). The Rockefellers: An American Dynasty. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. ISBN 9780030083716.

Ernst, Joseph W., editor. "Dear Father"/"Dear Son": Correspondence of John D. Rockefeller and John D. Rockefeller, Jr. New York: Fordham University Press, with the Rockefeller Archive Center, 1994.

Gates, Frederick Taylor. Chapters in My Life. New York: The Free Press, 1977.

Giddens, Paul H. Standard Oil Company (Companies and men). New York: Ayer Co. Publishing, 1976.

Goulder, Grace. John D. Rockefeller: The Cleveland Years. Western Reserve Historical Society, 1972.

Hidy, Ralph W. and Muriel E. Hidy. History of Standard Oil Company (New Jersey: Pioneering in Big Business). New York: Ayer Co., reprint, 1987.

Jonas, Gerald. The Circuit Riders: Rockefeller Money and the Rise of Modern Science. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1989.

Josephson, Matthew. The Robber Barons. London: Harcourt, 1962.

Kert, Bernice. Abby Aldrich Rockefeller: The Woman in the Family. New York: Random House, 1993.

Klein, Henry H. (2003) [1921]. Dynastic America and Those Who Own It. New York: Kessinger.

Knowlton, Evelyn H. and George S. Gibb. History of Standard Oil Company: Resurgent Years 1956.

Manchester, William. A Rockefeller Family Portrait: From John D. to Nelson. New York: Little, Brown, 1958.

Morris, Charles R. The Tycoons: How Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Jay Gould, and J. P. Morgan Invented the American Supereconomy. New York: Owl Books, reprint, 2006.

Nevins, Allan (1940). John D. Rockefeller: The Heroic Age of American Enterprise. Favorable scholarly biography

Pyle, Tom, as told to Beth Day. Pocantico: Fifty Years on the Rockefeller Domain. New York: Duell, Sloan and Pierce, 1964.

Roberts, Ann Rockefeller. The Rockefeller Family Home: Kykuit. New York: Abbeville Publishing Group, 1998.

Public Diary of John D. Rockefeller, now found in the Cleveland Western Historical Society

Rose, Kenneth W.; Stapleton, Darwin H. (1992). "Toward a 'Universal Heritage': Education and the Development of Rockefeller Philanthropy, 1884-1913". Teachers College Record. 93 (3): 536-55. doi:10.1177/016146819209300315. ISSN 0161-4681. S2CID 151797425.

Segall, Grant (February 8, 2001). John D. Rockefeller: Anointed With Oil. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19512147-6.

Tarbell, Ida M. (1963) [1904]. The History of the Standard Oil Company. 2 vols. Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith.

Williamson, Harold F.; Daum, Arnold R. (1959). The American Petroleum Industry: The Age of Illumination. (vol. 1); also vol 2, Williamson, Harold F.; Daum, Arnold R. (1964). American Petroleum Industry: The Age of Energy.

External links

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John Davison Rockefeller Sr. (July 8, 1839 - May 23, 1937) was an American business magnate and philanthropist. He was one of the wealthiest Americans of all time and one of the richest people in modern history. Rockefeller was born into a large family in Upstate New York who moved several times before eventually settling in Cleveland, Ohio.

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The age between the Civil War and WWI when the American economy grew rapidly and individuals were able to use monopolies to amass great wealth

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The Gilded Age in United States history is the late 19th century, from the 1870s to about 1900. The term for this period came into use in the 1920s and 1930s and was derived from writer Mark Twain's and Charles Dudley Warner's 1873 novel The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today , which satirized an era of serious social problems masked by a thin gold gilding.

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A banker who financed the reorganization of railroads, insurance companies, and banks. He bought out Carnegie and in 1901 he started the United States Steel Corporation

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John Pierpont Morgan Sr. (April 17, 1837 - March 31, 1913) was an American financier and investment banker who dominated corporate finance on Wall Street throughout the Gilded Age. As the head of the banking firm that ultimately became known as J.P. Morgan and Co., he was the driving force behind the wave of industrial consolidation in the United States spanning the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Over the course of his career on Wall Street, Morgan spearheaded the formation of several prominent multinational corporations including U.S. Steel, International Harvester and General Electric which subsequently fell under his supervision. He and his partners also held controlling interests in numerous other American businesses including Aetna, Western Union, Pullman Car Company and 21 railroads. Due to the extent of his dominance over U.S. finance, Morgan exercised enormous influence over the nation's policies and the market forces underlying its economy. During the Panic of 1907, he organized a coalition of financiers that saved the American monetary system from collapse.

As the Progressive Era's leading financier, Morgan's dedication to efficiency and modernization helped transform the shape of the American economy. Adrian Wooldridge characterized Morgan as America's "greatest banker". Morgan died in Rome, Italy, in his sleep in 1913 at the age of 75, leaving his fortune and business to his son, John Pierpont Morgan Jr. Biographer Ron Chernow estimated his fortune at $80million (equivalent to $2.4billion in 2022).

His father Junius Spencer Morgan guided his son's early career and established the Morgan banking house with offices in London, New York, Philadelphia, and Paris.

Morgan was born on April 17, 1837, in Hartford, Connecticut, to Junius Spencer Morgan (1813-1890) and Juliet Pierpont (1816-1884) of the influential Morgan family. His father, Junius, was a partner at Howe Mather & Co., the largest dry goods wholesaler in Hartford. His mother Juliet was the daughter of the poet John Pierpont.

Morgan preferred to be called "Pierpont", as opposed to "John". He had a varied education due in part to his father's plans. In 1847, when Morgan was ten years old, his grandfather John Morgan died and left a large fortune to Junius Spencer Morgan, who soon became a senior partner at the rechristened Mather Morgan & Co. In the fall of 1848, the young Morgan transferred to the Hartford Public School, then to the Episcopal Academy in Cheshire, Connecticut, where he boarded with the principal.

In September 1851, he passed the entrance exam for The English High School of Boston, which specialized in mathematics for careers in commerce. In April 1852, rheumatic fever struck Morgan, an illness whose symptoms became more common as his life progressed and left him in such pain that he could not walk. Junius sent him to the Azores to recover. He convalesced there for almost a year, then returned to Boston to resume his studies.

After graduation, his father sent him to Bellerive, a school in the Swiss village of La Tour-de-Peilz, where he gained fluency in French. His father then sent him to the University of Göttingen to improve his German. He attained passable fluency and a degree in art history within six months, completing his studies in 1857.

J.S. Morgan & Co.: 1858-1871

Early view (c. 1855) of 229, 225 and 219 Madison Avenue before the street was paved

After studying at Göttingen and thus completing his education, Morgan went to London in August 1857 to join his father, now a partner in the merchant banking firm George Peabody & Co.. For the next fourteen years, he worked as his father's American representative in a series of affiliate banking houses, learning the trade and lifestyle of a bank partner: Duncan, Sherman & Company (1858-60), his own firm J. Pierpont Morgan & Co. (1860-64), and finally Dabney Morgan (1864-72).

Morgan quickly moved on to New York City to begin work at Duncan Sherman as a junior clerk. Through his father's reputation and his position as the obvious successor to the Peabody house, he was quickly among the most sought-after young men on Wall Street and enjoyed the company of many of New York's leading citizens.

Morgan had a great deal of independence in both his investment decisions and lifestyle, owing partly to his father's faith in Morgan's austere religious discipline. "Remember," J.S. Morgan wrote his son, "that there is an Eye above that is ever upon you and that for every act, word, and deed you will one day be called to give account." He adopted a serious, energetic approach to his work and was praised by his father's friends for his work ethic and capacity for business.

At the time Morgan entered the firm, Peabody & Co. was struggling in the wake of the Panic of 1857, a rash of business failures which dramatically hurt investor confidence in American securities. Peabody & Co., whose business was focused on American trade and enterprise, was particularly threatened; a few of its American correspondents were forced to suspend operations. The house's creditors, including Baring Brothers, demanded payment; Peabody defied them, daring his rivals to put him out of business, and turned to the Bank of England for a loan in November 1857. Morgan himself expressed surprise that the famed Barings house was not more accommodating. The loan secured the house's survival and the London office was stabilized, but Duncan Sherman came under criticism on Wall Street, and the Mercantile Agency recommended its dissolution. J. P. Morgan urged his father to stand by Duncan Sherman in the face of "outrageous" reports "of Browns & Barings getting the credit for what they never did."

While at Duncan Sherman, Morgan gained early experience in the financing and reorganization of railroads, including the major Ohio & Mississippi and Illinois Central lines, for which he personally negotiated the loans. Most of his work involved collecting and transmitting interest and dividend payments, executing orders on the New York Stock Exchange, and conducting credit checks on mercantile houses doing business with Peabody & Co.

Starting in early January 1859, Morgan spent several months in the South to visit the firm's correspondents in Georgia, Alabama, and Louisiana and to improve his knowledge of the cotton trade. He briefly visited Cuba, where he developed a lifelong taste for Cuban cigars. Most of his time in the South was spent in New Orleans, a leading cotton export hub. He received a stern warning from Duncan Sherman when he conducted an unauthorized trade of coffee at a profit, which he considered his first totally independent transaction. Later that summer, he visited his father in London. They discussed the prospects of Morgan going into business for himself, and Morgan courted Amelia Sturges, whom he later married.

As the American Civil War began, business slowed, delaying Morgan's efforts to open his own office. He opened J. Pierpont Morgan & Company some time between April and July 1861, conducting operations out of a one-room office at 53 Exchange Place. As he anticipated, most of his business was for his father and consistent with the work he had managed at Duncan Sherman. Morgan avoided serving during the war by paying a substitute $300 to take his place.

In 1862, Morgan made his cousin, James Goodwin, a partner. The firm received a serious boost when Morgan's father succeeded George Peabody as head of the London office. J.S. Morgan transferred all of the London office's remaining commercial credit and securities accounts from Duncan Sherman, and by the end of 1862, J. Pierpont Morgan & Co. was considered one of the stronger private banking houses on Wall Street.

The Civil War radically altered Morgan's focus by virtually eliminating his cotton business and drastically reducing iron imports for American railroads in favor of securities and foreign exchange operations. The Morgans, trading through J. P.'s New York office, made a large profit in the purchase and sale of Union bonds, especially after the Battle of Antietam turned the war in the Union's favor. Morgan also profited in gold after specie payments were suspended in 1862; its price was largely pegged to the possibility of a Union victory. In October 1863, he and Edward B. Ketchum transferred $1.15 million (equivalent to $20,287,000 in 2021) in gold to England, forcing a price spike and allowing both men to sell their holdings at a large profit. Critics have long considered the deal a speculative effort to corner the American gold market and evidence of Morgan's insensitivity to the nation's financial situation, although the economic consequences were ultimately minor.

Hall Carbine Affair

In August 1861, Morgan lent $20,000 (equivalent to $483,140 in 2021) to Simon Stevens, a well-connected New York City attorney and former secretary to Thaddeus Stevens. Stevens used the money to purchase five thousand carbines for resale to General John C. Frémont, commander of the Department of the West. The carbines in question were developed by John H. Hall and manufactured by Simeon North, purchased by the U.S. government, and resold to arms dealer Arthur M. Eastman for $3.50 apiece in June 1861 (equivalent to $114 in 2022). After the Union defeat at Bull Run placed a premium on arms, Stevens used the Morgan loan to purchase the rifles from Eastman at $11.50 apiece and immediately resold them to Frémont, a longtime acquaintance, at $22 each.

Morgan photographed c. 1870

During the loan's thirty-eight day duration, Morgan held title to the carbines and assumed responsibility for having their barrels replaced with spirally grooved ones before shipment to Frémont. Stevens approached Morgan for another loan, which Morgan refused, instead asking Stevens for the $20,000 on the original loan and attempting to remove himself from the transaction. On September 14, Morgan received $55,000 from the Army for the carbines, deducted the face value of the loan plus expenses and interest, and passed the remainder to Stevens.

By September, when Morgan received payment, the deal was already controversial. Military officials felt Frémont had overpaid, and an 1863 House of Representatives report indicted the profiteers as "worse than traitors in arms." Though Morgan was neither criticized nor censured during contemporary investigations, his name remained connected with the Hall Carbine Affair for many years.

Debate over Morgan's knowledge and involvement became a cause célèbre within his lifetime, attracting a wide range of commentary; debate over his involvement and knowledge has persisted long after his death. Interest in Morgan's role in the affair was rekindled in 1910 with the publication of Gustavus Myers' History of the Great American Fortunes. Myers claimed the rifles were more likely to blow the rifleman's thumb off than they were to cause any damage to the enemy. An earlier version of the carbine rifle was known to be subject to this problem. R. Gordon Wasson, later the head of public relations for J.P. Morgan & Co., argued that there was no evidence Morgan knew that he was participating in a scheme to profit. Vincent Carosso, author of an academic history of the Morgan house, concurs that Stevens "used Morgan's name" to cover his greed and that "none of the evidence suggested that Morgan himself had been a party to the shabby contract or had participated in its profits," though he "failed to exercise the care and caution that he had demonstrated two years earlier in the New Orleans coffee deal." Matthew Josephson, who popularized the term "robber baron," asserted that Morgan certainly did know of the scheme, because he had presented the government with a bill for $58,175 before he delivered the remaining rifles that were being held as collateral. Reviewing the evidence, Charles Morris also concluded that it was "implausible" that Morgan did not know about the source of his profits.

From 1864 to 1872, he was a member of the firm of Dabney, Morgan, & Co. In 1869, He wrested control of the Albany and Susquehanna Railroad from Jay Gould and Jim Fisk.

Drexel Morgan & Co.: 1871-1895

In 1871, at the behest of J.S. Morgan, the Philadelphia financier Anthony Joseph Drexel became J. P.'s mentor. They formed Drexel Morgan & Co. This new merchant banking partnership, based in New York, served as an agent for European investment in the United States and assumed the leading role in financing America's railroads and stabilizing and revitalizing American securities markets. The firm created a national capital market for industrial companies, which had previously existed only for railroads and canals. Drexel Morgan also played an important role in government finance. To restore investor confidence, Drexel Morgan underwrote the pay of the entire U.S. Army in 1877 and bailed out the U.S. government during the Panic of 1895. The foundation of Drexel Morgan and their partnership with Anthony Drexel also established Morgan family offices in London (J.S. Morgan), Philadelphia, New York City (Dabney Morgan), and Paris (Drexel Harjes), which would subsequently become J.P. Morgan & Co.

After his father's death in 1890, Morgan took control of J. S. Morgan & Co.

Bond of the New Jersey Junction Railroad Company, issued 30. June 1886, reverse side with signatures of John Pierpont Morgan and Harris C. Fahnestock as trustees

In his ascent to power, Morgan focused on America's largest business enterprises: railroads. He led the syndicate that broke the government-financing privileges of Jay Cooke and developed and financed a national railroad empire by reorganization and consolidation. He raised large sums in Europe. Rather than participating solely as a financier, he actively managed and reorganized the railroad corporations, increasing efficiency and acting as an early pioneer in the practice of private equity investing, a process that became known as "Morganization".

In 1883, Morgan successfully marketed a large part of William H. Vanderbilt's New York Central holdings. In 1885, he reorganized the New York, West Shore & Buffalo Railroad and leased it to the New York Central. In 1886, he reorganized the Philadelphia & Reading, and in 1888, the Chesapeake & Ohio.

In 1887, Congress passed the Interstate Commerce Act. Morgan set up industry conferences in 1889 and 1890 which paved the way for a wave of consolidations in the early 20th century. In an unprecedented move, he brought together railroad presidents to follow the new laws and write agreements for the maintenance of "public, reasonable, uniform and stable rates". The first of their kind, the conferences created a community of interest among competing lines, paving the way for the great consolidations of the early 20th century.

Morgan also financed street railways, especially in New York City.

J.P. Morgan & Company: 1895-1913

After the death of Anthony Drexel, the firm was renamed J. P. Morgan & Company in 1895, retaining close ties with Drexel & Company of Philadelphia; Morgan, Harjes & Company of Paris; and J.S. Morgan & Company (after 1910 Morgan, Grenfell & Company) of London. By 1900 it was one of the world's most powerful banking houses, focused primarily on reorganizations and consolidations.

Morgan had many partners over the years, such as George Walbridge Perkins, but always remained firmly in charge. His international reputation as a financier began to draw investors to the businesses that he took over.

At the depths of the Panic of 1893, around 1895, the U.S. Treasury nearly depleted its gold reserves. Morgan put forward a plan for the federal government to buy gold from his and European banks, but it was declined in favor of a plan to sell government bonds directly to the general public. Morgan demanded a meeting with President Grover Cleveland, where he claimed the United States government could default that day if action was not taken.

Morgan came up with a plan to use an old civil war statute that allowed Morgan and the Rothschilds to sell 3.5 million ounces of gold directly to the U.S. Treasury in exchange for a 30-year bond issue. The episode saved the Treasury but hurt Cleveland's standing with the populist agrarian wing of the Democratic Party, ensuring his political career was over. In the 1896 United States presidential election, bankers came under a withering attack from William Jennings Bryan, and Morgan was among many who donated heavily to Republican William McKinley.

In 1900, the inventor Nikola Tesla convinced Morgan he could build a trans-Atlantic wireless communication system based on his theories of Earth and atmospheric electrical conduction (eventually sited at Wardenclyffe) that would outperform the short range radio wave-based wireless telegraph system then being demonstrated by Guglielmo Marconi. In what may have been a philanthropic investment, Morgan gave Tesla $150,000 (equivalent to $5,276,400 in 2022) to build the system and Tesla offered him a 51% control of the patents. Almost as soon as the letter of agreement was signed Tesla decided to scale up the facility to include his ideas of terrestrial wireless power transmission to make what he thought was a more competitive system. Morgan refused to give Tesla any further money towards the project and, with Tesla unable to secure further investment capital, Wardenclyffe's development stalled and the site was abandoned by 1906.

Portrait of J. P. Morgan; Cutthroat Capitalist -Oil on canvas by Fedor Encke, 1903

The Northern Pacific Railway went bankrupt in the Panic of 1893. The bankruptcy wiped out the railroad's bondholders, leaving it free of debt, and a complex financial battle for its control ensued. In 1901, a compromise was reached between Morgan, New York financier E. H. Harriman and Minnesota railroad builder James J. Hill. To reduce competition in the Midwest, they created the Northern Securities Company to merge three of the region's most important railways: the Northern Pacific Railway, the Great Northern Railway, and the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad. The parties ran into unexpected opposition from President Theodore Roosevelt, who considered the merger bad for consumers and a violation of the seldom-enforced Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890. In 1902, Roosevelt ordered Attorney General Philander Knox to sue to break it up. In 1904, the Supreme Court dissolved the Northern Security company; though Morgan did not lose money, his all-powerful political reputation suffered.

In 1900, Morgan began talks to purchase Andrew Carnegie's steel business and merge it with several other steel, coal, mining and shipping firms. After financing the creation of the Federal Steel Company, Morgan merged it with the Carnegie Steel Company and several other steel and iron businesses (including William Edenbirn's Consolidated Steel and Wire Company) in 1901, forming the United States Steel Corporation. U.S. Steel was the world's first billion-dollar company, with an authorized capitalization of $1.4 billion, much larger than any other industrial firm and comparable in size to the largest railroads.

U.S. Steel's goals were to achieve greater economies of scale, reduce transportation and resource costs, expand product lines, and improve distribution to allow the United States to compete globally with the United Kingdom and Germany. U.S. Steel president Charles M. Schwab and others claimed the company's size would enable it to be more aggressive and effective in pursuing distant international markets. Critics regarded U.S. Steel as a monopoly, as it sought to dominate not only steel but the construction of bridges, ships, railroad cars, rails, wire, nails, and many other products. With U.S. Steel, Morgan captured two-thirds of the steel market, and Schwab was confident that the company would soon hold a 75% market share. However, its market share dropped. In 1903, Schwab resigned to form Bethlehem Steel, which became the second largest U.S. steel producer.

U.S. Steel also faced criticism for its labor policies. U.S. Steel was non-union and used aggressive tactics to identify and root out pro-union "troublemakers." The lawyers and bankers who had organized the merger, including Morgan, were more concerned with long-range profits, stability, good public relations, and avoiding trouble. His views generally prevailed, and the result was a "paternalistic" labor policy.

Morgan suffered a rare business defeat in 1902 when he attempted to build and operate a line on the London Underground. Transit magnate Charles Tyson Yerkes thwarted Morgan's effort to obtain parliamentary authority to build the Piccadilly, City and North East London Railway, a subway line that would have competed with "tube" lines controlled by Yerkes. Morgan called Yerkes' coup "the greatest rascality and conspiracy I ever heard of".

International Mercantile Marine and RMS Titanic: 1902-1913

In 1902, J.P. Morgan & Co. financed the formation of International Mercantile Marine Co. (IMMC), an Atlantic shipping company which absorbed several major American and British lines in an attempt to monopolize the shipping trade. Morgan hoped to dominate transatlantic shipping through interlocking directorates and contractual arrangements with the railroads, but that proved impossible because of the unscheduled nature of sea transport, American antitrust legislation, and an agreement with the British government.

Morgan had a private suite and promenade deck on the RMS Titanic and scheduled to sail on the ill-fated maiden voyage of the ship, which was owned by an IMMC subsidiary, White Star Line, but those plans were later changed. The ship's famous sinking was a financial disaster for IMMC. Analysis of financial records shows that IMMC was over-leveraged and suffered from inadequate cash flow causing it to default on bond interest payments.

In response to the sinking, Morgan purportedly said:

Monetary losses amount to nothing in life. It is the loss of life that counts. It is that frightful death.

Morgan's overpowering role in the American economy was demonstrated in this political cartoon

The Panic of 1907 was a financial crisis that almost crippled the American economy. Major New York banks were on the verge of bankruptcy and there was no mechanism to rescue them, until Morgan stepped in to help resolve the crisis. To ease the crisis, Secretary of the Treasury George B. Cortelyou earmarked $35 million of federal money to deposit in New York banks. Morgan then met with the nation's leading financiers in his New York mansion, where he forced them to devise a plan to meet the crisis. James Stillman, president of the National City Bank, also played a central role. Morgan organized a team of bank and trust executives which redirected money between banks, secured further international lines of credit, and bought up the plummeting stocks of healthy corporations.

A delicate issue arose regarding the brokerage firm of Moore and Schley, which was deeply invested in the Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company (TCI). Moore and Schley had used over $6 million of TCI stock as collateral for loans to Wall Street banks, which the firm now could not pay. If Moore and Schley failed, it could precipitate a larger crisis. Thus, Morgan proposed merging the TCI with U.S. Steel, one of its chief competitors.

U.S. Steel president Elbert Gary agreed, but was concerned that antitrust implications could obstruct the merger. Morgan sent Gary to see President Theodore Roosevelt, who promised legal immunity for the deal. U.S. Steel thereupon paid $30 million for the TCI stock and Moore and Schley was saved. The announcement had an immediate effect; by November 7, 1907, the panic was over.

The crisis underscored the need for a powerful oversight mechanism, and in 1913, banking and political leaders, led by Senator Nelson Aldrich, devised a plan that resulted in the creation of the Federal Reserve System.

"I Like a Little Competition"-J. P. Morgan, pen and ink by Art Young, relating to the answer Morgan gave to the Pujo Committee in 1912, when asked whether he disliked competition.

While conservatives hailed Morgan for civic responsibility, strengthening the national economy, and devotion to the arts and religion, critics of banking and consolidation viewed him as one of the leading figures in the system they rejected. They attacked Morgan for the terms of his 1895 loan of gold to the U.S. Treasury. Many, including writer Upton Sinclair, attacked him for his handling of the Panic of 1907. They also blamed him for the financial ills of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad.

In December 1912, Morgan testified before the Pujo Committee, a subcommittee of the House Banking and Currency committee. The committee ultimately concluded that a small number of financial leaders was exercising considerable control over many industries. The partners of J.P. Morgan & Co. and directors of First National and National City Bank controlled aggregate resources of $22.245 billion, which Louis Brandeis compared to the value of all the property in the twenty-two states west of the Mississippi River.

Investigation by historian James Lide discovered that through parts of its business, JPMorgan Chase accepted thousands of slaves as collateral on loans made to plantation owners in the early 19th century, and that it ended up owning several hundred slaves. The banks in question, Citizens' Bank and Canal Bank, both now part of JPMorgan, served plantations from the 1830s until the American Civil War, and sometimes took ownership of slaves when the plantation owners defaulted on loans. JPMorgan estimated that between 1831 and 1865, the two banks accepted approximately 13,000 slaves as collateral and ended up owning about 1,250 slaves. An apology was made in compliance with a rule requiring companies to detail past dealings with the slave trade when doing business with the city of Chicago.

From 1890 to 1913, 42 major corporations were organized or their securities were underwritten, in whole or part, by J.P. Morgan and Company.

J. P. Morgan walking alongside his son in the last known photograph of the two together (ca. 1913)

In October 1861, Morgan married Amelia "Memi" Sturges (1835-1862) at her home on 5 East Fourteenth Street. He had courted her for two years, and when they married, Memi was already seriously ill with tuberculosis. Morgan had to carry her to the drawing room for a small private ceremony and afterwards to the carriage which took them to the pier. They travelled to Algiers, where he hoped the warm climate would restore their health, but it did not, and she died in Nice in February 1862, four months and ten days after their marriage.

He then married Frances Louisa "Fanny" Tracy (1842-1924), on May 31, 1865. They had four children:

Morgan was self-conscious about his rosacea and hated being photographed without permission.

Morgan often had a tremendous physical effect on people; one man said that a visit from Morgan left him feeling "as if a gale had blown through the house." He was physically large with massive shoulders, piercing eyes, and a purple nose. He was known to dislike publicity and hated being photographed without his permission; as a result of his self-consciousness of his rosacea, all of his professional portraits were retouched. His deformed nose was due to a disease called rhinophyma, which can result from rosacea. As the deformity worsens, pits, nodules, fissures, lobulations, and pedunculation contort the nose. This condition inspired the crude taunt "Johnny Morgan's nasal organ has a purple hue." Surgeons could have shaved away the rhinophymous growth of sebaceous tissue during Morgan's lifetime, but as a child he suffered from infantile seizures, and Morgan's son-in-law, Herbert L. Satterlee, has speculated that he did not seek surgery for his nose because he feared the seizures would return.

His social and professional self-confidence were too well established to be undermined by this affliction. It appeared as if he dared people to meet him squarely and not shrink from the sight, asserting the force of his character over the ugliness of his face.

Morgan smoked dozens of cigars per day and favored large Havana cigars dubbed Hercules' Clubs by observers.

Morgan was a lifelong member of the Episcopal Church, and by 1890 was one of its most influential leaders. He was a founding member of the Church Club of New York, an Episcopal private member's club in Manhattan. Morgan was appointed as one of the first laymen on the committee that created the 1892 revision of the Book of Common Prayer, where he petitioned for the creation of a special limited collectible printing that he later financed. In 1910, the General Convention of the Episcopal Church established a commission, proposed by Bishop Charles Brent, to implement a world conference of churches to address their differences in their " faith and order." Morgan was so impressed by the proposal for such a conference that he contributed $100,000 (equivalent to $2,125,100 in 2021) to finance the commission's work.

The Morgan Library & Museum

His house at 219 Madison Avenue was originally built in 1853 by John Jay Phelps and purchased by Morgan in 1882. It became the first electrically lit private residence in New York. His interest in the new technology was a result of his financing Thomas Alva Edison's Edison Electric Illuminating Company in 1878. It was there that a reception of 1,000 people was held for the marriage of Juliet Morgan and William Pierson Hamilton on April 12, 1894, where they were given a favorite clock of Morgan's. Morgan also owned the "Cragston" estate, located in Highland Falls, New York. His son, of the same name, was the owner of East Island in Glen Cove, New York.

J. P. Morgan spent three months of every year in London and owned two houses there. His 'town' house, 13 Prince's Gate was inherited from his father and was later expanded by the acquisition of the neighbouring Number 14 to house his growing art collection. After his death the merged houses were offered to the US government for use as the residence of the US Ambassador, from 1929 to 1955. His other property was Dover House, Putney, which was later demolished and developed into the Dover House Estate.

Morgan was a member of the Union Club in New York City. When a friend, Erie Railroad president John King, was blackballed, Morgan resigned and organized the Metropolitan Club of New York. He donated the land on 5th Avenue and 60th Street at a cost of $125,000, and commanded Stanford White to "...build me a club fit for gentlemen, forget the expense..." He invited King in as a charter member and served as club president from 1891 to 1900.

Morgan was a benefactor of the Morgan Library and Museum, the American Museum of Natural History, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the British Museum, Groton School, Harvard University (especially its medical school), Trinity College, the Lying-in Hospital of the City of New York, and the New York trade schools.

J. P. Morgan's yacht Corsair II, later bought by the U.S. Government and renamed the USS Gloucester to serve in the Spanish-American War. Photograph by J. S. Johnston

Morgan was the Commodore of the New York Yacht Club (NYYC) and was present at a board meeting on October 27, 1898, to discuss the construction of a new clubhouse. Morgan offered to acquire a 75-by-100-foot (23 by 30 m) plot on 44th Street in midtown Manhattan if the NYYC raised its annual membership dues from $25 to $50 and the new clubhouse occupied the entire site. The NYYC's board accepted his offer, and Morgan bought the lots the next day for $148,000 and donated to the club.

NYYC members hosted an informal housewarming party on January 29, 1901, giving Morgan a trophy in gratitude of his purchase of the site.

An avid yachtsman, Morgan owned several large yachts, the first being the Corsair, built by William Cramp & Sons for Charles J. Osborn (1837-1885) and launched on May 26, 1880. Charles J. Osborn was Jay Gould's private banker. Morgan bought the yacht in 1882. The well-known quote, "If you have to ask the price, you can't afford it" is commonly attributed to Morgan in response to a question about the cost of maintaining a yacht, although the story is unconfirmed. A similarly unconfirmed legend attributes the quote to his son, J. P. Morgan Jr., in connection with the launching of the son's yacht Corsair IV at Bath Iron Works in 1930.

Morgan was a collector of books, pictures, paintings, clocks and other art objects, many loaned or given to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (of which he was president and a major force in its establishment), and many housed in his London house and in his private library on 36th Street, near Madison Avenue in New York City.

For a number of years the British artist and art critic Roger Fry worked for the museum, and in effect for Morgan, as a collector.

His son, J. P. Morgan Jr., made the Pierpont Morgan Library a public institution in 1924 as a memorial to his father, and appointed Belle da Costa Greene, his father's private librarian, as its first director.

By the turn of the century, Morgan had become one of America's most important collectors of gems and had assembled the most important gem collection in the U.S. as well as of American gemstones (over 1,000 pieces). Tiffany & Co. assembled his first collection under their Chief Gemologist, George Frederick Kunz. The collection was exhibited at the World's Fair in Paris in 1889. The exhibit won two golden awards and drew the attention of important scholars, lapidaries, and the general public.

George Frederick Kunz continued to build a second, even finer, collection which was exhibited in Paris in 1900. These collections have been donated to the American Museum of Natural History in New York, where they were known as the Morgan-Tiffany and the Morgan-Bement collections. In 1911 Kunz named a newly found gem after his best customer morganite.

Photography

U.S. gemstones from the Morgan collection

Morgan was a patron to photographer Edward S. Curtis, offering Curtis $75,000 in 1906 (equivalent to $1,730,560 in 2021) to create a series on the American Indians. Curtis eventually published a 20-volume work entitled The North American Indian. Curtis also produced a motion picture, In the Land of the Head Hunters (1914), which was restored in 1974 and re-released as In the Land of the War Canoes. Curtis was also famous for a 1911 magic lantern slide show The Indian Picture Opera which used his photos and original musical compositions by composer Henry F. Gilbert.

Morgan died while traveling abroad on March 31, 1913, in his sleep at the Grand Hotel Plaza in Rome, Italy. His body was brought back to America aboard the SS France, a French Line passenger ship. Flags on Wall Street flew at half-staff, and in an honor usually reserved for heads of state, the stock market closed for two hours when his body passed through New York City. His body was brought to lie in his home and adjacent library the first night of arrival in New York City. His remains were interred in the Cedar Hill Cemetery in his birthplace of Hartford, Connecticut. His son, John Pierpont "Jack" Morgan Jr., inherited the banking business. His estate was worth $68.3 million ($1.39 billion in today's dollars based on CPI, or $25.2 billion based on share of GDP), of which about $30 million represented his share in the New York and Philadelphia banks. The value of his art collection was estimated at $50 million.

His son, J. P. Morgan Jr., took over the business at his father's death, but he was never as influential. The 1933 Glass-Steagall Act forced the dissolution of the House of Morgan into three entities:

The gemstone morganite was named in his honor.

The Cragston Dependencies, associated with his estate, Cragston (at Highlands, New York), was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

He bequeathed his mansion and large book collections to the Morgan Library & Museum in New York.

John Pierpont Morgan memorial in Cedar Hill Cemetery

A contemporary literary biography of Morgan is used as an allegory for the financial environment in America after World War I in the second volume, Nineteen Nineteen, of John Dos Passos' U.S.A. trilogy.

Morgan appears as a character in Caleb Carr's novel The Alienist,[99] in E. L. Doctorow's novel Ragtime,[100] in Steven S. Drachman's novel The Ghosts of Watt O'Hugh,[101] in Graham Moore's novel The Last Days of Night,[102] and in Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray's novel The Personal Librarian.[103]

Morgan is believed to have been the model for Walter Parks Thatcher (played by George Coulouris), guardian of the young Citizen Kane (film directed by Orson Welles) with whom he has a tense relationship-Kane blaming Thatcher for destroying his childhood.[104]

According to Phil Orbanes, former vice president of Parker Brothers, the Rich Uncle Pennybags of the American version of the board game Monopoly is modeled after J. P. Morgan.[105] The family of the illustrator Daniel Fox, who in 1936 created the mascot for the game, have credited J. P. Morgan as being the inspiration for the character.[106]

Morgan's career is highlighted in episodes three and four of the History Channel's The Men Who Built America.[107]

"My Name Is Morgan (But It Ain't J.P.)" - 1906 popular song released as an Edison cylinder recording, with words by Will A. Mahoney, music by Halsey K. Mohr, and sung by Bob Roberts. Originally released as a "coon song" but revised over the years, a poor man named Morgan tells his girlfriend not to mistake him for a rich man.[108][109]

The villain of Street Fighter 6 is an elderly upper-class banker that uses a variety of aliases, all of which have the initials "JP." He claims to have lived for over one hundred years, empowered by his business association with M. Bison

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11. ^ Steven H. Gittelman, J.P. Morgan and the Transportation Kings: The Titanic and Other Disasters, University Press of America, 2012, pages 286-287

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14. ^ "Yachting: Commodore Morgan Gives the New-york Club a Site for a House to Race for the Canadian Cup Yacht Associations Meet". New-York Tribune. October 28, 1898. p. 4. ProQuest 574511646.

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16. ^ "New Yacht Club House; Commodore Morgan Buys a 75-Foot Frontage in Forty-fourth Street for a Site". The New York Times. October 29, 1898. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on October 26, 2022.

17. ^ "Com Morgan Pays $148,000.: Loses No Time in Making Good His Offer to Provide Site for New Clubhouse for New York Yacht Club". Boston Daily Globe. October 29, 1898. p. 5. ProQuest 498954045.

18. ^ "N.Y.Y.C. Honors J.P. Morgan: Silver Loving Cup Presented to the Club's Ex-commodore". The New York Times. January 30, 1901. p. 7. ISSN 0362-4331. ProQuest 1013633831.

19. ^ "Harriman Gets Chicago Lines.: Terminal Transfer Company's Stock Reported in Control of Eastern Man. Details of the Deal. Charity Ball for Benefit of Nursery and Childs' Hospital a Success. General New York News". Chicago Tribune. January 30, 1901. p. 5. ProQuest 173095798.

20. ^ Morgan and His Gem Collection; George Frederick Kunz: Gems and Precious Stones of North America, New York, 1890, accessed online February 20, 2007.

21. ^ Morgan and His Gem Collections; donations to AMNH; in George Frederick Kunz: History of Gems Found in North Carolina, Raleigh, 1907, accessed online February 20, 2007.

22. ^ "Digital Collections - Libraries - Northwestern University". dc.library.northwestern.edu.

23. ^ "The Indian Picture Opera-A Vanishing Race". Archived from the original on March 11, 2007.

24. ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. March 13, 2009.

25. ^ Association of Game and Puzzle Collectors Quarterly www.AGPC.ORG summer 2013 Vol.15 No. 2. Page 18. Meet Daniel Gidahlia Fox - The Artist Who Created "Mr. Monopoly" by Emily F.Clements.

26. ^ "The Men Who Built America > The History Channel Club". September 30, 2012. Archived from the original on September 30, 2012.

27. ^ Cass Canfield, The Incredible Pierpont Morgan: financier and art collector; Harper & Row (1974), p. 125

28. ^ David A. Jasen, A Century of American Popular Music, Routledge, October 15, 2013, page 142

Auchincloss, Louis (1990). J.P. Morgan: The Financier as Collector. Harry N. Abrams, Inc. ISBN 0-8109-3610-0.

Bruner, Robert F.; Carr, Sean D. (2007). The Panic of 1907: Lessons Learned from the Market's Perfect Storm.

Brandeis, Louis (1914). Other People's Money and How the Bankers Use It. New York: Frederic A. Stokes Company.

Brands, H.W. (2010). American Colossus: The Triumph of Capitalism, 1865-1900. New York: Anchor Books.

Burgan, Michael (2007). J. Pierpont Morgan: Industrialist and Financier. Capstone.

Carosso, Vincent P. (1987). The Morgans: Private International Bankers, 1854-1913. Harvard Univ. Press. p. 888. ISBN 978-0-674-58729-8.

Chernow, Ron (2001). The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance. ISBN 0-8021-3829-2.

Clark, John J.; Clark, Margaret T. (1997). "The International Mercantile Marine Company: A Financial Analysis". American Neptune. 57 (2): 137-154.

Garraty, John A. (1960). "The United States Steel Corporation Versus Labor: the Early Years". Labor History. 1 (1): 3-38. doi:10.1080/00236566008583839.

Gross, Michael (2009). Rogues' Gallery: The Secret History of the Moguls and the Money That Made the Metropolitan Museum. New York: Broadway Books. p. 69. ISBN 978-0-7679-2488-7. OCLC 244417339.

Hein, David; Shattuck, Gardiner H. Jr. (2005). The Episcopalians. Westport: Praeger.

Morris, Charles (2006). The Tycoons: How Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Jay Gould, and J. P. Morgan Invented the American Supereconomy. New York: Holt Paperbacks. ISBN 978-0-8050-8134-3.

Rottenberg, Dan (2006). The Man Who Made Wall Street: Anthony J. Drexel and the Rise of Modern Finance. University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 98. ISBN 9780812219661.

Satterlee, Herbert L. (1939). J. Pierpont Morgan. New York: The Macmillan Company., written by Morgan's son-in-law

Bryman, Jeremy. J. P. Morgan: Banker to a Growing Nation. Morgan Reynolds Publishing (2001) ISBN 1-883846-60-9, for middle schools

Wheeler, George, Pierpont Morgan and Friends: the Anatomy of a Myth, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., Prentice-Hall, 1973. ISBN 0136761488

Carosso, Vincent P. Investment Banking in America: A History Harvard University Press (1970)

De Long, Bradford. "Did JP Morgan's Men Add Value?: An Economist's Perspective on Financial Capitalism," in Peter Temin, ed., Inside the Business Enterprise: Historical Perspectives on the Use of Information (1991) pp. 205-36; shows firms with a Morgan partner on their board had higher stock prices (relative to book value) than their competitors

Forbes, John Douglas. J. P. Morgan Jr. 1867-1943 (1981). 262 pp. biography of his son

Fraser, Steve. Every Man a Speculator: A History of Wall Street in American Life HarperCollins (2005)

Garraty, John A. Right-Hand Man: The Life of George W. Perkins. (1960) ISBN 978-0-313-20186-8; Perkins was a top aide 1900-1910

Geisst; Charles R. Wall Street: A History from Its Beginnings to the Fall of Enron. Oxford University Press. 2004.

Giedeman, Daniel C. "J. P. Morgan, the Clayton Antitrust Act, and Industrial Finance-Constraints in the Early Twentieth Century", Essays in Economic and Business History, 2004 22: 111-126

Hannah, Leslie. "J. P. Morgan in London and New York before 1914," Business History Review 85 (Spring 2011) 113-50

Keys, C.M. (January 1908). "The Builders I: The House of Morgan". The World's Work. Vol. 15, no. 2. pp. 9779-9704.

Moody, John. The Masters of Capital: A Chronicle of Wall Street (1921)

Baker, Ray Stannard (October 1901). "J. Pierpont Morgan". McClure's Magazine. Vol. 17, no. 6. pp. 507-518., a biographical magazine article

Brands, H.W. (1999). Masters of Enterprise: Giants of American Business from John Jacob Astor and J. P. Morgan to Bill Gates and Oprah Winfrey., including a short biography of Morgan

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John Pierpont Morgan Sr. (April 17, 1837 - March 31, 1913) was an American financier and investment banker who dominated corporate finance on Wall Street throughout the Gilded Age. As the head of the banking firm that ultimately became known as J.P.

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An organized group of workers that use collective bargaining to improve working conditions

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A trade union ( British English) or labor union ( American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers whose purpose is to maintain or improve the conditions of their employment, such as attaining better wages and benefits, improving working conditions, improving safety standards, establishing complaint procedures, developing rules governing status of employees (rules governing promotions, just-cause conditions for termination) and protecting and increasing the bargaining power of workers.

Trade unions typically fund their head office and legal team functions through regularly imposed fees called union dues. The union representatives in the workforce are usually made up of workplace volunteers who are often appointed by members through internal democratic elections. The trade union, through an elected leadership and bargaining committee, bargains with the employer on behalf of its members, known as the rank and file, and negotiates labour contracts (collective bargaining agreements) with employers.

Unions may organize a particular section of skilled or unskilled workers ( craft unionism), a cross-section of workers from various trades ( general unionism), or an attempt to organize all workers within a particular industry ( industrial unionism). The agreements negotiated by a union are binding on the rank-and-file members and the employer, and in some cases on other non-member workers. Trade unions traditionally have a constitution which details the governance of their bargaining unit and also have governance at various levels of government depending on the industry that binds them legally to their negotiations and functioning.

Originating in Great Britain, trade unions became popular in many countries during the Industrial Revolution. Trade unions may be composed of individual workers, professionals, past workers, students, apprentices or the unemployed. Trade union density, or the percentage of workers belonging to a trade union, is highest in the Nordic countries.

Garment workers on strike, New York City, c. 1913

Since the publication of the History of Trade Unionism (1894) by Sidney and Beatrice Webb, the predominant historical view is that a trade union "is a continuous association of wage earners for the purpose of maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment". Karl Marx described trade unions thus: "The value of labour-power constitutes the conscious and explicit foundation of the trade unions, whose importance for the ... working class can scarcely be overestimated. The trade unions aim at nothing less than to prevent the reduction of wages below the level that is traditionally maintained in the various branches of industry. That is to say, they wish to prevent the price of labour-power from falling below its value" ( Capital V1, 1867, p. 1069). Early socialists also saw trade unions as a way to democratize the workplace, in order to obtain political power.

A modern definition by the Australian Bureau of Statistics states that a trade union is "an organisation consisting predominantly of employees, the principal activities of which include the negotiation of rates of pay and conditions of employment for its members".

Recent historical research by Bob James puts forward the view that trade unions are part of a broader movement of benefit societies, which includes medieval guilds, Freemasons, Oddfellows, friendly societies, and other fraternal organizations.

Following the unification of the city-states in Assyria and Sumer by Sargon of Akkad into a single empire c. 2334 BC, common Mesopotamian standards for length, area, volume, weight, and time used by artisan guilds in each city was promulgated by Naram-Sin of Akkad ( c. 2254-2218 BC), Sargon's grandson, including for shekels. Codex Hammurabi Law 234 ( c. 1755-1750 BC) stipulated a 2-shekel prevailing wage for each 60-gur (300- bushel) vessel constructed in an employment contract between a shipbuilder and a ship-owner. Law 275 stipulated a ferry rate of 3- gerah per day on a charterparty between a ship charterer and a shipmaster. Law 276 stipulated a 2-gerah per day freight rate on a contract of affreightment between a charterer and shipmaster, while Law 277 stipulated a -shekel per day freight rate for a 60-gur vessel. In 1816, an archaeological excavation in Minya, Egypt (under an Eyalet of the Ottoman Empire) produced a Nerva-Antonine dynasty-era tablet from the ruins of the Temple of Antinous in Antinoöpolis, that prescribed the rules and membership dues of a burial society established in Lanuvium, in approximately 133 AD during the reign of Hadrian (117-138) of the Roman Empire.

A collegium was any association in ancient Rome that acted as a legal entity. Following the passage of the during the reign of Julius Caesar (49-44 BC), and their reaffirmation during the reign of Caesar Augustus (27 BC-14 AD), collegia required the approval of the Roman Senate or the Roman emperor in order to be authorized as legal bodies. Ruins at Lambaesis date the formation of burial societies among Roman Army soldiers and Roman Navy mariners to the reign of Septimius Severus (193-211) in 198 AD. In September 2011, archaeological investigations done at the site of the artificial harbor Portus in Rome revealed inscriptions in a shipyard constructed during the reign of Trajan (98-117) indicating the existence of a shipbuilders guild. Rome's La Ostia port was home to a guildhall for a corpus naviculariorum, a collegium of merchant mariners. Collegium also included fraternities of Roman priests overseeing ritual sacrifices, practising augury, keeping scriptures, arranging festivals, and maintaining specific religious cults.

While a commonly held mistaken view holds modern trade unionism to be a product of Marxism, the earliest modern trade unions predate Marx's Communist Manifesto (1848) by almost a century (and Marx's writings themselves frequently address the prior existence of the workers' movements of his time.) The first recorded labour strike in the United States was by Philadelphia printers in 1786, who opposed a wage reduction and demanded $6 per week in wages. The origins of modern trade unions can be traced back to 18th-century Britain, where the Industrial Revolution drew masses of people, including dependents, peasants and immigrants, into cities. Britain had ended the practice of serfdom in 1574, but the vast majority of people remained as tenant-farmers on estates owned by the landed aristocracy. This transition was not merely one of relocation from rural to urban environs; rather, the nature of industrial work created a new class of "worker". A farmer worked the land, raised animals and grew crops, and either owned the land or paid rent, but ultimately sold a product and had control over his life and work. As industrial workers, however, the workers sold their work as labour and took directions from employers, giving up part of their freedom and self-agency in the service of a master. The critics of the new arrangement would call this " wage slavery", but the term that persisted was a new form of human relations: employment. Unlike farmers, workers often had less control over their jobs; without job security or a promise of an on-going relationship with their employers, they lacked some control over the work they performed or how it impacted their health and life. It is in this context that modern trade unions emerge.

In the cities, trade unions encountered much hostility from employers and government groups. In the United States, unions and unionists were regularly prosecuted under various restraint of trade and conspiracy laws, such as the Sherman Antitrust Act. This pool of unskilled and semi-skilled labour spontaneously organized in fits and starts throughout its beginnings, and would later be an important arena for the development of trade unions. Trade unions have sometimes been seen as successors to the guilds of medieval Europe, though the relationship between the two is disputed, as the masters of the guilds employed workers (apprentices and journeymen) who were not allowed to organize.

Trade unions and collective bargaining were outlawed from no later than the middle of the 14th century, when the Ordinance of Labourers was enacted in the Kingdom of England, but their way of thinking was the one that endured down the centuries, inspiring evolutions and advances in thinking which eventually gave workers more power. As collective bargaining and early worker unions grew with the onset of the Industrial Revolution, the government began to clamp down on what it saw as the danger of popular unrest at the time of the Napoleonic Wars. In 1799, the Combination Act was passed, which banned trade unions and collective bargaining by British workers. Although the unions were subject to often severe repression until 1824, they were already widespread in cities such as London. Workplace militancy had also manifested itself as Luddism and had been prominent in struggles such as the 1820 Rising in Scotland, in which 60,000 workers went on a general strike, which was soon crushed. Sympathy for the plight of the workers brought repeal of the acts in 1824, although the Combination Act 1825 severely restricted their activity.[citation needed ]

By the 1810s, the first labour organizations to bring together workers of divergent occupations were formed. Possibly the first such union was the General Union of Trades, also known as the Philanthropic Society, founded in 1818 in Manchester. The latter name was to hide the organization's real purpose in a time when trade unions were still illegal.

Poster issued by the London Trades Council, advertising a demonstration held on 2 June 1873

The first attempts at forming a national general union in the United Kingdom were made in the 1820s and 30s. The National Association for the Protection of Labour was established in 1830 by John Doherty, after an apparently unsuccessful attempt to create a similar national presence with the National Union of Cotton-spinners. The Association quickly enrolled approximately 150 unions, consisting mostly of textile related unions, but also including mechanics, blacksmiths, and various others. Membership rose to between 10,000 and 20,000 individuals spread across the five counties of Lancashire, Cheshire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire within a year. To establish awareness and legitimacy, the union started the weekly Voice of the People publication, having the declared intention "to unite the productive classes of the community in one common bond of union."

In 1834, the Welsh socialist Robert Owen established the Grand National Consolidated Trades Union. The organization attracted a range of socialists from Owenites to revolutionaries and played a part in the protests after the Tolpuddle Martyrs' case, but soon collapsed.

More permanent trade unions were established from the 1850s, better resourced but often less radical. The London Trades Council was founded in 1860, and the Sheffield Outrages spurred the establishment of the Trades Union Congress in 1868, the first long-lived national trade union center. By this time, the existence and the demands of the trade unions were becoming accepted by liberal middle-class opinion. In Principles of Political Economy (1871) John Stuart Mill wrote:

If it were possible for the working classes, by combining among themselves, to raise or keep up the general rate of wages, it needs hardly be said that this would be a thing not to be punished, but to be welcomed and rejoiced at. Unfortunately the effect is quite beyond attainment by such means. The multitudes who compose the working class are too numerous and too widely scattered to combine at all, much more to combine effectually. If they could do so, they might doubtless succeed in diminishing the hours of labour, and obtaining the same wages for less work. They would also have a limited power of obtaining, by combination, an increase of general wages at the expense of profits.

Beyond this claim, Mill also argued that, because individual workers had no basis for assessing the wages for a particular task, labour unions would lead to greater efficiency of the market system.

Legalization, expansion and recognition

Trade union demonstrators held at bay by soldiers during the 1912 Lawrence textile strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts

British trade unions were finally legalized in 1872, after a Royal Commission on Trade Unions in 1867 agreed that the establishment of the organizations was to the advantage of both employers and employees.

This period also saw the growth of trade unions in other industrializing countries, especially the United States, Germany and France.

In the United States, the first effective nationwide labour organization was the Knights of Labor, in 1869, which began to grow after 1880. Legalization occurred slowly as a result of a series of court decisions. The Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions began in 1881 as a federation of different unions that did not directly enrol workers. In 1886, it became known as the American Federation of Labor or AFL.

In Germany, the Free Association of German Trade Unions was formed in 1897 after the conservative Anti-Socialist Laws of Chancellor Otto von Bismarck were repealed.

In France, labour organization was illegal until 1884. The Bourse du Travail was founded in 1887 and merged with the Fédération nationale des syndicats (National Federation of Trade Unions) in 1895 to form the General Confederation of Labour.

In a number of countries during the 20th century, including in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom, legislation was passed to provide for the voluntary or statutory recognition of a union by an employer.

World map with countries shaded according to their trade union density rate with statistics provided by the International Labour Organization Department of Statistics

Labor union membership by country

Hours Worked Compared to Earnings Per Week

Union density has been steadily declining from the OECD average of 35.9% in 1998 to 27.9% in the year 2018. The main reasons for these developments are a decline in manufacturing, increased globalization, and governmental policies.

The decline in manufacturing is the most direct influence, as unions were historically beneficial and prevalent in the sector; for this reason, there may be an increase in developing nations as OECD nations continue to export manufacturing industries to these markets. The second reason is globalization, which makes it harder for unions to maintain standards across countries. The last reason is governmental policies. These come from both sides of the political spectrum. In the UK and US, it has been mostly right-wing proposals that make it harder for unions to form or that limit their power. On the other side, there are many social policies such as minimum wage, paid vacation, parental leave, etc., that decrease the need to be in a union.

The prevalence of labour unions can be measured by "union density", which is expressed as a percentage of the total number of workers in a given location who are trade union members. The table below shows the percentage across OECD members.

Cesar Chavez speaking at a 1974 United Farm Workers rally in Delano, California. The UFW during Chavez's tenure was committed to restricting immigration.

Unions may organize a particular section of skilled workers ( craft unionism, traditionally found in Australia, Canada, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK and the US), a cross-section of workers from various trades ( general unionism, traditionally found in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Netherlands, the UK and the US), or attempt to organize all workers within a particular industry ( industrial unionism, found in Australia, Canada, Germany, Finland, Norway, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK and the US).[citation needed ] These unions are often divided into " locals", and united in national federations. These federations themselves will affiliate with Internationals, such as the International Trade Union Confederation. However, in Japan, union organisation is slightly different due to the presence of enterprise unions, i.e. unions that are specific to a plant or company. These enterprise unions, however, join industry-wide federations which in turn are members of Rengo, the Japanese national trade union confederation.

In Western Europe, professional associations often carry out the functions of a trade union. In these cases, they may be negotiating for white-collar or professional workers, such as physicians, engineers or teachers. In Sweden the white-collar unions have a strong position in collective bargaining where they cooperate with blue-colar unions in setting the "mark" (the industry norm) in negotiations with the employers' association in manufacturing industry.

A union may acquire the status of a " juristic person" (an artificial legal entity), with a mandate to negotiate with employers for the workers it represents. In such cases, unions have certain legal rights, most importantly the right to engage in collective bargaining with the employer (or employers) over wages, working hours, and other terms and conditions of employment. The inability of the parties to reach an agreement may lead to industrial action, culminating in either strike action or management lockout, or binding arbitration. In extreme cases, violent or illegal activities may develop around these events.

The Great Southwest Railroad Strike of 1886 was a trade union strike involving more than 200,000 workers.[40]

In other circumstances, unions may not have the legal right to represent workers, or the right may be in question. This lack of status can range from non-recognition of a union to political or criminal prosecution of union activists and members, with many cases of violence and deaths having been recorded historically.

Unions may also engage in broader political or social struggle. Social Unionism encompasses many unions that use their organizational strength to advocate for social policies and legislation favourable to their members or to workers in general. As well, unions in some countries are closely aligned with political parties. Many Labour parties were founded as the electoral arms of trade unions.

Unions are also delineated by the service model and the organizing model. The service model union focuses more on maintaining worker rights, providing services, and resolving disputes. Alternately, the organizing model typically involves full-time union organizers, who work by building up confidence, strong networks, and leaders within the workforce; and confrontational campaigns involving large numbers of union members. Many unions are a blend of these two philosophies, and the definitions of the models themselves are still debated.

In Britain, the perceived left-leaning nature of trade unions (and their historical close alignment with the Labour Party) has resulted in the formation of a reactionary right-wing trade union called Solidarity which is supported by the far-right BNP. In Denmark, there are some newer apolitical "discount" unions who offer a very basic level of services, as opposed to the dominating Danish pattern of extensive services and organizing.

A rally of the trade union UNISON in Oxford during a strike on 28 March 2006

In contrast, in several European countries (e.g. Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and Switzerland), religious unions have existed for decades. These unions typically distanced themselves from some of the doctrines of orthodox Marxism, such as the preference of atheism and from rhetoric suggesting that employees' interests always are in conflict with those of employers. Some of these Christian unions have had some ties to centrist or conservative political movements, and some do not regard strikes as acceptable political means for achieving employees' goals. In Poland, the biggest trade union Solidarity emerged as an anti-communist movement with religious nationalist overtones and today it supports the right-wing Law and Justice party.

Although their political structure and autonomy varies widely, union leaderships are usually formed through democratic elections. Some research, such as that conducted by the Australian Centre for Industrial Relations Research and Training, argues that unionized workers enjoy better conditions and wages than those who are not unionized.

The oldest global trade union organizations include the World Federation of Trade Unions created in 1945. The largest trade union federation in the world is the Brussels-based International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), created in 2006, which has approximately 309 affiliated organizations in 156 countries and territories, with a combined membership of 166 million. National and regional trade unions organizing in specific industry sectors or occupational groups also form global union federations, such as UNI Global, IndustriALL, the International Transport Workers Federation, the International Federation of Journalists, the International Arts and Entertainment Alliance and Public Services International.

Union law varies from country to country, as does the function of unions. For example, German and Dutch unions have played a greater role in management decisions through participation in supervisory boards and co-determination than other countries. Moreover, in the United States, collective bargaining is most commonly undertaken by unions directly with employers, whereas in Austria, Denmark, Germany or Sweden, unions most often negotiate with employers associations, a form of sectoral bargaining.

Concerning labour market regulation in the EU, Gold (1993) and Hall (1994) have identified three distinct systems of labour market regulation, which also influence the role that unions play:

"In the Continental European System of labour market regulation, the government plays an important role as there is a strong legislative core of employee rights, which provides the basis for agreements as well as a framework for discord between unions on one side and employers or employers' associations on the other. This model was said to be found in EU core countries such as Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Italy, and it is also mirrored and emulated to some extent in the institutions of the EU, due to the relative weight that these countries had in the EU until the EU expansion by the inclusion of 10 new Eastern European member states in 2004.

In the Anglo-Saxon System of labour market regulation, the government's legislative role is much more limited, which allows for more issues to be decided between employers and employees and any union or employers' associations which might represent these parties in the decision-making process. However, in these countries, collective agreements are not widespread; only a few businesses and a few sectors of the economy have a strong tradition of finding collective solutions in labour relations. Ireland and the UK belong to this category, and in contrast to the EU core countries above, these countries first joined the EU in 1973.

In the Nordic System of labour market regulation, the government's legislative role is limited in the same way as in the Anglo-Saxon system. However, in contrast to the countries in the Anglo-Saxon system category, this is a much more widespread network of collective agreements, which covers most industries and most firms. This model was said to encompass Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. Here, Denmark joined the EU in 1973, whereas Finland and Sweden joined in 1995."

The United States takes a more laissez-faire approach, setting some minimum standards but leaving most workers' wages and benefits to collective bargaining and market forces. Thus, it comes closest to the above Anglo-Saxon model. Also, the Eastern European countries that have recently entered into the EU come closest to the Anglo-Saxon model.

In contrast, in Germany, the relation between individual employees and employers is considered to be asymmetrical. In consequence, many working conditions are not negotiable due to a strong legal protection of individuals. However, the German flavor or works legislation has as its main objective to create a balance of power between employees organized in unions and employers organized in employers' associations. This allows much wider legal boundaries for collective bargaining, compared to the narrow boundaries for individual negotiations. As a condition to obtain the legal status of a trade union, employee associations need to prove that their leverage is strong enough to serve as a counterforce in negotiations with employers. If such an employee's association is competing against another union, its leverage may be questioned by unions and then evaluated in labour court. In Germany, only very few professional associations obtained the right to negotiate salaries and working conditions for their members, notably the medical doctor's association Marburger Bund and the pilots association Vereinigung Cockpit. The engineer's association Verein Deutscher Ingenieure does not strive to act as a union, as it also represents the interests of engineering businesses.

Beyond the classification listed above, unions' relations with political parties vary. In many countries unions are tightly bonded, or even share leadership, with a political party intended to represent the interests of the working class. Typically, this is a left-wing, socialist, or social democratic party, but many exceptions exist, including some of the aforementioned Christian unions. In the United States, trade unions are almost always aligned with the Democratic Party with a few exceptions. For example, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters has supported Republican Party candidates on a number of occasions and the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) endorsed Ronald Reagan in 1980. In Britain trade union movement's relationship with the Labour Party frayed as party leadership embarked on privatization plans at odds with what unions see as the worker's interests. However, it has strengthened once more after the Labour party's election of Ed Miliband, who beat his brother David Miliband to become leader of the party after Ed secured the trade union votes. Additionally, in the past, there was a group known as the Conservative Trade Unionists, or CTU, formed of people who sympathized with right wing Tory policy but were Trade Unionists.

Historically, the Republic of Korea has regulated collective bargaining by requiring employers to participate, but collective bargaining has only been legal if held in sessions before the lunar new year.[citation needed ]

Companies that employ workers with a union generally operate on one of several models:

A closed shop (US) or a "pre-entry closed shop" (UK) employs only people who are already union members. The compulsory hiring hall is an example of a closed shop-in this case the employer must recruit directly from the union, as well as the employee working strictly for unionized employers.

A union shop (US) or a "post-entry closed shop" (UK) employs non-union workers as well but sets a time limit within which new employees must join a union.

An agency shop requires non-union workers to pay a fee to the union for its services in negotiating their contract. This is sometimes called the Rand formula.

An open shop does not require union membership in employing or keeping workers. Where a union is active, workers who do not contribute to a union may include those who approve of the union contract (free riders) and those who do not. In the United States, state level right-to-work laws mandate the open shop in some states. In Germany only open shops are legal; that is, all discrimination based on union membership is forbidden. This affects the function and services of the union.

An EU case concerning Italy stated that, "The principle of trade union freedom in the Italian system implies recognition of the right of the individual not to belong to any trade union ("negative" freedom of association/trade union freedom), and the unlawfulness of discrimination liable to cause harm to non-unionized employees."

In Britain, previous to this EU jurisprudence, a series of laws introduced during the 1980s by Margaret Thatcher's government restricted closed and union shops. All agreements requiring a worker to join a union are now illegal. In the United States, the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 outlawed the closed shop.

In 2006, the European Court of Human Rights found Danish closed-shop agreements to be in breach of Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. It was stressed that Denmark and Iceland were among a limited number of contracting states that continue to permit the conclusion of closed-shop agreements.

Income inequality and union participation have had a distinctly inverse relationship, with the disparity increasing since the 1980s.[55]

The academic literature shows substantial evidence that trade unions reduce economic inequality. The economist Joseph Stiglitz has asserted that, "Strong unions have helped to reduce inequality, whereas weaker unions have made it easier for CEOs, sometimes working with market forces that they have helped shape, to increase it." Evidence indicates that those who are not members of unions also see higher wages. Researchers suggest that unions set industrial norms as firms try to stop further unionization or losing workers to better-paying competitors. The decline in unionization since the Second World War in the United States has been associated with a pronounced rise in income and wealth inequality and, since 1967, with loss of middle class income. Right-to-work laws have been linked to greater economic inequality in the United States.

The Hoover Institution think tank has asserted that the economic inequality argument made in favor of trade unions "misfires on several fronts. Those high union wages could not survive in the face of foreign competition or new nonunionized firms. The only way a union can provide gains for its members is to extract some fraction of the profits that firms enjoy when they hold monopoly positions." The think tank has also asserted that the decline of trade unions in the United States "cannot drive widespread inequality for the entire population, which is also affected by a rise in the knowledge economy as well as a general aging of the population."

Research from Norway has found that high unionization rates lead to substantial increases in firm productivity, as well as increases in workers' wages. Research from Belgium also found productivity gains, although smaller. However, other research in the United States has found that unions can harm profitability, employment and business growth rates. UK research on employment, wages, productivity, and investment found union density improved all metrics - but only until a limit. Forming U-shaped curves, after an optimal density, more unionisation worsened employment, wages, etc. Research from the Anglosphere indicates that unions can provide wage premiums and reduce inequality while reducing employment growth and restricting employment flexibility.

In the United States, the outsourcing of labour to Asia, Latin America, and Africa has been partially driven by increasing costs of union partnership, which gives other countries a comparative advantage in labour, making it more efficient to perform labour-intensive work there. Trade unions have been accused of benefiting insider workers and those with secure jobs at the cost of outsider workers, consumers of the goods or services produced, and the shareholders of the unionized business. Economist Milton Friedman sought to show that unionization produces higher wages (for the union members) at the expense of fewer jobs, and that, if some industries are unionized while others are not, wages will tend to decline in non-unionized industries. Friedrich Hayek criticized unions in chapter 18 of his publication The Constitution of Liberty.

In the United States, the weakening of unions has been linked to more favourable electoral outcomes for the Republican Party. Legislators in areas with high unionization rates are more responsive to the interests of the poor, whereas areas with lower unionization rates are more responsive to the interests of the rich. Higher unionization rates increase the likelihood of parental leave policies being adopted. Republican-controlled states are less likely to adopt more restrictive labour policies when unions are strong in the state.

Research in the United States found that American congressional representatives were more responsive to the interests of the poor in districts with higher unionization rates. Another 2020 American study found an association between US state level adoption of parental leave legislation and trade union strength.

In the United States, unions have been linked to lower racial resentment among whites. Membership in unions increases political knowledge, in particular among those with less formal education.

According to American socialist magazine , "Labor unions have long occupied a paradoxical position within Marxist theory. They are an essential expression of the working class taking shape as a collective actor and an essential vehicle for working-class action. ... At the same time, unions are an imperfect and incomplete vehicle for the working class to achieve one of Marxist theory's central goals: overthrowing capitalism. Unions by their very existence affirm and reinforce capitalist class society. As organizations which primarily negotiate wages, benefits, and working conditions with employers, unions only exist in relation to capitalists."

In the United States, higher union density has been associated with lower suicide/overdose deaths. Decreased unionization rates in the United States have been linked to an increase in occupational fatalities.

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27. ^ Rosenfeld, Jake (2014). What Unions No Longer Do. Cambridge: Harvard University. ISBN 9780674726215.

28. ^ Western, Bruce; Rosenfeld, Jake (August 2011). "Unions, Norms, and the Rise in U.S. Wage Inequality" (PDF). American Sociological Review. 76 (4): 513-537. doi:10.1177/0003122411414817. ISSN 0003-1224. S2CID 18351034. Archived from the original (PDF) on 11 January 2024.

29. Doree Armstrong (12 February 2014). ^ Jake Rosenfeld explores the sharp decline of union membership, influence. UW Today. Retrieved 6 March 2015. See also: Jake Rosenfeld (2014) What Unions No Longer Do. Harvard University Press. ISBN 0674725115

30. Keith Naughton, Lynn Doan and Jeffrey Green (20 February 2015). ^ As the Rich Get Richer, Unions Are Poised for Comeback. Bloomberg. Retrieved 6 March 2015.
"A 2011 study drew a link between the decline in union membership since 1973 and expanding wage disparity. Those trends have since continued, said Bruce Western, a professor of sociology at Harvard University who co-authored the study."

31. ^ Barth, Erling; Bryson, Alex; Dale-Olsen, Harald (16 October 2020). "Union Density Effects on Productivity and Wages". The Economic Journal. 130 (631): 1898-1936. doi:10.1093/ej/ueaa048. hdl:11250/2685607. ISSN 0013-0133.

32. ^ Monastiriotis, Vassilis (17 February 2003). "Union retreat and regional economic performance: the UK in the 1990s" (PDF). Research Papers in Environmental and Spatial Analysis. 77. Archived from the original on 11 January 2024 - via ResearchGate.

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35. ^ Engeman, Cassandra (2020). "When Do Unions Matter to Social Policy? Organized Labor and Leave Legislation in US States". Social Forces. 99 (4): 1745-1771. doi:10.1093/sf/soaa074.

36. ^ Engeman, Cassandra (2020). "When Do Unions Matter to Social Policy? Organized Labor and Leave Legislation in US States". Social Forces. 99 (4): 1745-1771. doi:10.1093/sf/soaa074. Event history analysis of state-level leave policy adoption from 1983 to 2016 shows that union institutional strength, particularly in the public sector, is positively associated with the timing of leave policy adoption.

37. ^ Eisenberg-Guyot, Jerzy; Mooney, Stephen J.; Hagopian, Amy; Barrington, Wendy E.; Hajat, Anjum (2020). "Solidarity and disparity: Declining labor union density and changing racial and educational mortality inequities in the United States". American Journal of Industrial Medicine. 63 (3): 218-231. doi:10.1002/ajim.23081. ISSN 1097-0274. PMC . PMID 31845387. Results - Overall, a 10% increase in union density was associated with a 17% relative decrease in overdose/suicide mortality (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.70, 0.98), or 5.7 lives saved per 100 000 person‐years (95% CI: −10.7, −0.7). Union density's absolute (lives‐saved) effects on overdose/suicide mortality were stronger for men than women, but its relative effects were similar across genders. Union density had little effect on all‐cause mortality overall or across subgroups, and modeling suggested union‐density increases would not affect mortality inequities. Conclusions - Declining union density (as operationalized in this study) may not explain all‐cause mortality inequities, although increases in union density may reduce overdose/suicide mortality.

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A trade union ( British English) or labor union ( American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers whose purpose is to maintain or improve the conditions of their employment, such as attaining better wages and benefits, improving working conditions, improving safety standards, establishing complaint procedures, developing rules governing status of employees (rules governing promotions, just-cause conditions for termination) and protecting and increasing the bargaining power of workers.

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Positive name for wealthy business owners during the Gilded Age, implying that they helped the United States become strong through their business pursuits

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The five ' Titans of Industry ' discussed in this series are, without a doubt, the most influential and impactful men in American history. Without any one of them, the entire landscape of the US would be different. They are the founders of the American economy.

We live in a world today that is based on the actions of John D. Rockefeller. Everything we do and how we live are the result of oil and its power.

J.P. Morgan is more than just the name on one of the largest banks in America; He built the financial world we live in today.

Henry Ford not only revolutionized the automobile industry, but the assembly line he created has changed the way the entire world thinks about manufacturing.

Grab a copy, pull up a chair, pour your favorite reading beverage, and dive in to the lives of the men who built America.

Andrew Carnegie

Andrew Carnegie amassed wealth that inspired generations of entrepreneurs and industrialists. Starting with nothing in Scotland, he gradually built so much wealth that those at the top of the current Forbes list would still not be able to match him.

He began working at a young age, and the lessons he learned from observing his surroundings gave him the foundational structure that allowed him to build his wealth and etch his name in the minds of generations to come.

J.P. Morgan is more than just the name on one of the largest banks in America. He was a man who altered the course of American finance and the chief financier for the strategic interests of the titans of the day, such as Carnegie and Rockefeller. He also financed new and ingenious technologies developed by Thomas Edison and was a visionary who saw the potential in Nikola Tesla.

His ability was not limited to Wall Street, though, and his reputation was not bound by the shores of America. He touched core industries in his lifetime, from shipping to power to steel and provided the spark that reignited the economic soul of America after the Crash of 1907.

John D. Rockefeller

Rockefeller was the quintessential industrialist. He created an industry out of nascent oil and gas start-ups during a time when none existed. He was strategic in his thinking, choosing to enter the refining side of the oil industry instead of the exploring and drilling aspect of it. He started with one refinery and then quickly bought up more than 90 percent of his competitors in the state within a few short years.

The story of Rockefeller as told in this book provides a deep view of the oil industry and is told from a very human and real perspective. It looks at the events that shaped his life, from the shenanigans of his crooked father to the pleasant and philanthropic old man that he became.

The Ford name is everywhere. It is ingrained in the American way of life. From the way we make our food to the way we think about cars, it all came from the mind of this Irishman from Michigan.

This book covers his life from when his family immigrated to Michigan until his last breath. It recounts a life from the perspective of someone who wants to understand the genius and spirit within everyone.

Cornelius Vanderbilt

Cornelius Vanderbilt I had no illusions about his life. He didn't start out with grand plans and ungodly greed. He merely stepped in this world one foot at a time, one boat at a time, one market at a time-one day at a time. He worked sixteen hours a day, seven days a week. He worked hard and played hard. When all was said and done, though, he was a simple man who pushed the world of transportation to be all it could be-to be what it is today.

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Business Biographies and Memoirs - Titans of Industry: Andrew Carnegie, J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, Henry Ford, Cornelius Vanderbilt

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Business Biographies and Memoirs - Titans of Industry: Andrew Carnegie, J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, Henry Ford, Cornelius Vanderbilt [MacGregor, J.R.] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Business Biographies and Memoirs - Titans of Industry: Andrew Carnegie, J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, Henry Ford, Cornelius Vanderbilt

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The idea that extremely wealthy Americans had a responsibility to spend their money in order to benefit the greater good.

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Originally titled simply "Wealth" and published in the North American Review in June 1889, Andrew Carnegie's essay "The Gospel of Wealth" is considered a foundational document in the field of philanthropy. Carnegie believed in giving wealth away during one's lifetime, and this essay includes one of his most famous quotes, "The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced." Carnegie's message continues to resonate with and inspire leaders and philanthropists around the world.

"The Gospel of Wealth"

By Andrew Carnegie

The problem of our age is the proper administration of wealth, so that the ties of brotherhood may still bind together the rich and poor in harmonious relationship. The conditions of human life have not only been changed, but revolutionized, within the past few hundred years. In former days there was little difference between the dwelling, dress, food, and environment of the chief and those of his retainers. The Indians are today where civilized man then was. When visiting the Sioux, I was led to the wigwam of the chief. It was just like the others in external appearance, and even within the difference was trifling between it and those of the poorest of his braves. The contrast between the palace of the millionaire and the cottage of the laborer with us today measures the change which has come with civilization. This change, however, is not to be deplored, but welcomed as highly beneficial. It is well, nay, essential for the progress of the race, that the houses of some should be homes for all that is highest and best in literature and the arts, and for all the refinements of civilization, rather than that none should be so. Much better this great irregularity than universal squalor. Without wealth there can be no Mæcenas. The "good old times " were not good old times. Neither master nor servant was as well situated then as to-day. A relapse to old conditions would be disastrous to both-not the least so to him who serves-and would sweep away civilization with it. But whether the change be for good or ill, it is upon us, beyond our power to alter, and therefore to be accepted and made the best of. It is a waste of time to criticize the inevitable.

It is easy to see how the change has come. One illustration will serve for almost every phase of the cause. In the manufacture of products we have the whole story. It applies to all combinations of human industry, as stimulated and enlarged by the inventions of this scientific age. Formerly articles were manufactured at the domestic hearth or in small shops which formed part of the household. The master and his apprentices worked side by side, the latter living with the master, and therefore subject to the same conditions. When these apprentices rose to be masters, there was little or no change in their mode of life, and they, in turn, educated in the same routine succeeding apprentices. There was, substantially social equality, and even political equality, for those engaged in industrial pursuits had then little or no political voice in the State.

"The poor enjoy what the rich could not before afford. What were the luxuries have become the necessaries of life. The laborer has now more comforts than the landlord had a few generations ago."

But the inevitable result of such a mode of manufacture was crude articles at high prices. Today the world obtains commodities of excellent quality at prices which even the generation preceding this would have deemed incredible. In the commercial world similar causes have produced similar results, and the race is benefited thereby. The poor enjoy what the rich could not before afford. What were the luxuries have become the necessaries of life. The laborer has now more comforts than the landlord had a few generations ago. The farmer has more luxuries than the landlord had, and is more richly clad and better housed. The landlord has books and pictures rarer, and appointments more artistic, than the King could then obtain.

The price we pay for this salutary change is, no doubt, great. We assemble thousands of operatives in the factory, in the mine, and in the counting-house, of whom the employer can know little or nothing, and to whom the employer is little better than a myth. All intercourse between them is at an end. Rigid castes are formed, and, as usual, mutual ignorance breeds mutual distrust. Each caste is without sympathy for the other, and ready to credit anything disparaging in regard to it. Under the law of competition, the employer of thousands is forced into the strictest economies, among which the rates paid to labor figure prominently, and often there is friction between the employer and the employed, between capital and labor, between rich and poor. Human society loses homogeneity.

The price which society pays for the law of competition, like the price it pays for cheap comforts and luxuries, is also great; but the advantage of this law are also greater still, for it is to this law that we owe our wonderful material development, which brings improved conditions in its train. But, whether the law be benign or not, we must say of it, as we say of the change in the conditions of men to which we have referred: It is here; we cannot evade it; no substitutes for it have been found; and while the law may be sometimes hard for the individual, it is best for the race, because it insures the survival of the fittest in every department. We accept and welcome therefore, as conditions to which we must accommodate ourselves, great inequality of environment, the concentration of business, industrial and commercial, in the hands of a few, and the law of competition between these, as being not only beneficial, but essential for the future progress of the race. Having accepted these, it follows that there must be great scope for the exercise of special ability in the merchant and in the manufacturer who has to conduct affairs upon a great scale. That this talent for organization and management is rare among men is proved by the fact that it invariably secures for its possessor enormous rewards, no matter where or under what laws or conditions. The experienced in affairs always rate the MAN whose services can be obtained as a partner as not only the first consideration, but such as to render the question of his capital scarcely worth considering, for such men soon create capital; while, without the special talent required, capital soon takes wings. Such men become interested in firms or corporations using millions; and estimating only simple interest to be made upon the capital invested, it is inevitable that their income must exceed their expenditures, and that they must accumulate wealth. Nor is there any middle ground which such men can occupy, because the great manufacturing or commercial concern which does not earn at least interest upon its capital soon becomes bankrupt. It must either go forward or fall behind: to stand still is impossible. It is a condition essential for its successful operation that it should be thus far profitable, and even that, in addition to interest on capital, it should make profit. It is a law, as certain as any of the others named, that men possessed of this peculiar talent for affair, under the free play of economic forces, must, of necessity, soon be in receipt of more revenue than can be judiciously expended upon themselves; and this law is as beneficial for the race as the others.

Objections to the foundations upon which society is based are not in order, because the condition of the race is better with these than it has been with any others which have been tried. Of the effect of any new substitutes proposed we cannot be sure. The Socialist or Anarchist who seeks to overturn present conditions is to be regarded as attacking the foundation upon which civilization itself rests, for civilization took its start from the day that the capable, industrious workman said to his incompetent and lazy fellow, "If thou dost not sow, thou shalt not reap," and thus ended primitive Communism by separating the drones from the bees. One who studies this subject will soon be brought face to face with the conclusion that upon the sacredness of property civilization itself depends--the right of the laborer to his hundred dollars in the savings bank, and equally the legal right of the millionaire to his millions. To these who propose to substitute Communism for this intense Individualism the answer, therefore, is: The race has tried that. All progress from that barbarous day to the present time has resulted from its displacement. Not evil, but good, has come to the race from the accumulation of wealth by those who have the ability and energy that produce it. But even if we admit for a moment that it might be better for the race to discard its present foundation, Individualism,-that it is a nobler ideal that man should labor, not for himself alone, but in and for a brotherhood of his fellows, and share with them all in common, realizing Swedenborg's idea of Heaven, where, as he says, the angels derive their happiness, not from laboring for self, but for each other,-even admit all this, and a sufficient answer is, This is not evolution, but revolution. It necessitates the changing of human nature itself a work of eons, even if it were good to change it, which we cannot know.

It is not practicable in our day or in our age. Even if desirable theoretically, it belongs to another and long-succeeding sociological stratum. Our duty is with what is practicable now; with the next step possible in our day and generation. It is criminal to waste our energies in endeavoring to uproot, when all we can profitably or possibly accomplish is to bend the universal tree of humanity a little in the direction most favorable to the production of good fruit under existing circumstances. We might as well urge the destruction of the highest existing type of man because he failed to reach our ideal as favor the destruction of Individualism, Private Property, the Law of Accumulation of Wealth, and the Law of Competition; for these are the highest results of human experience, the soil in which society so far has produced the best fruit. Unequally or unjustly, perhaps, as these laws sometimes operate, and imperfect as they appear to the Idealist, they are, nevertheless, like the highest type of man, the best and most valuable of all that humanity has yet accomplished.

We start, then, with a condition of affairs under which the best interests of the race are promoted, but which inevitably gives wealth to the few. Thus far, accepting conditions as they exist, the situation can be surveyed and pronounced good. The question then arises,-and, if the foregoing be correct, it is the only question with which we have to deal,-What is the proper mode of administering wealth after the laws upon which civilization is founded have thrown it into the hands of the few ? And it is of this great question that I believe I offer the true solution. It will be understood that fortunes are here spoken of, not moderate sums saved by many years of effort, the returns on which are required for the comfortable maintenance and education of families. This is not wealth, but only competence which it should be the aim of all to acquire.

There are but three modes in which surplus wealth can be disposed of. It can be left to the families of the decedents; or it can be bequeathed for public purposes; or, finally, it can be administered during their lives by its possessors. Under the first and second modes most of the wealth of the world that has reached the few has hitherto been applied. Let us in turn consider each of these modes. The first is the most injudicious. In monarchical countries, the estates and the greatest portion of the wealth are left to the first son, that the vanity of the parent may be gratified by the thought that his name and title are to descend to succeeding generations unimpaired. The condition of this class in Europe to-day teaches the futility of such hopes or ambitions. The successors have become impoverished through their follies or from the fall in the value of land. Even in Great Britain the strict law of entail has been found inadequate to maintain the status of an hereditary class. Its soil is rapidly passing into the hands of the stranger. Under republican institutions the division of property among the children is much fairer, but the question which forces itself upon thoughtful men in all lands is: Why should men leave great fortunes to their children? If this is done from affection, is it not misguided affection? Observation teaches that, generally speaking, it is not well for the children that they should be so burdened. Neither is it well for the state. Beyond providing for the wife and daughters moderate sources of income, and very moderate allowances indeed, if any, for the sons, men may well hesitate, for it is no longer questionable that great sums bequeathed oftener work more for the injury than for the good of the recipients. Wise men will soon conclude that, for the best interests of the members of their families and of the state, such bequests are an improper use of their means.

It is not suggested that men who have failed to educate their sons to earn a livelihood shall cast them adrift in poverty. If any man has seen fit to rear his sons with a view to their living idle lives, or, what is highly commendable, has instilled in them the sentiment that they are in a position to labor for public ends without reference to pecuniary considerations, then, of course, the duty of the parent is to see that such are provided for in moderation. There are instances of millionaires' sons unspoiled by wealth, who, being rich, still perform great services in the community. Such are the very salt of the earth, as valuable as, unfortunately, they are rare; still it is not the exception, but the rule, that men must regard, and, looking at the usual result of enormous sums conferred upon legatees, the thoughtful man must shortly say, "I would as soon leave to my son a curse as the almighty dollar," and admit to himself that it is not the welfare of the children, but family pride, which inspires these enormous legacies.

As to the second mode, that of leaving wealth at death for public uses, it may be said that this is only a means for the disposal of wealth, provided a man is content to wait until he is dead before it becomes of much good in the world. Knowledge of the results of legacies bequeathed is not calculated to inspire the brightest hopes of much posthumous good being accomplished. The cases are not few in which the real object sought by the testator is not attained, nor are they few in which his real wishes are thwarted. In many cases the bequests are so used as to become only monuments of his folly. It is well to remember that it requires the exercise of not less ability than that which acquired the wealth to use it so as to be really beneficial to the community. Besides this, it may fairly be said that no man is to be extolled for doing what he cannot help doing, nor is he to be thanked by the community to which he only leaves wealth at death. Men who leave vast sums in this way may fairly be thought men who would not have left it at all, had they been able to take it with them. The memories of such cannot be held in grateful remembrance, for there is no grace in their gifts. It is not to be wondered at that such bequests seem so generally to lack the blessing.

The growing disposition to tax more and more heavily large estates left at death is a cheering indication of the growth of a salutary change in public opinion. The State of Pennsylvania now takes-subject to some exceptions-one-tenth of the property left by its citizens. The budget presented in the British Parliament the other day proposes to increase the death-duties; and, most significant of all, the new tax is to be a graduated one. Of all forms of taxation, this seems the wisest. Men who continue hoarding great sums all their lives, the proper use of which for - public ends would work good to the community, should be made to feel that the community, in the form of the state, cannot thus be deprived of its proper share. By taxing estates heavily at death the state marks its condemnation of the selfish millionaire's unworthy life.

It is desirable that nations should go much further in this direction. Indeed, it is difficult to set bounds to the share of a rich man's estate which should go at his death to the public through the agency of the state, and by all means such taxes should be graduated, beginning at nothing upon moderate sums to dependents, and increasing rapidly as the amounts swell, until of the millionaire's hoard, as of Shylock's, at least

"The other half
Comes to the privy coffer of the state."

This policy would work powerfully to induce the rich man to attend to the administration of wealth during his life, which is the end that society should always have in view, as being that by far most fruitful for the people. Nor need it be feared that this policy would sap the root of enterprise and render men less anxious to accumulate, for to the class whose ambition it is to leave great fortunes and be talked about after their death, it will attract even more attention, and, indeed, be a somewhat nobler ambition to have enormous sums paid over to the state from their fortunes.

There remains, then, only one mode of using great fortunes; but in this we have the true antidote for the temporary unequal distribution of wealth, the reconciliation of the rich and the poor-a reign of harmony-another ideal, differing, indeed, from that of the Communist in requiring only the further evolution of existing conditions, not the total overthrow of our civilization. It is founded upon the present most intense individualism, and the race is projected to put it in practice by degree whenever it pleases. Under its sway we shall have an ideal state, in which the surplus wealth of the few will become, in the best sense the property of the many, because administered for the common good, and this wealth, passing through the hands of the few, can be made a much more potent force for the elevation of our race than if it had been distributed in small sums to the people themselves. Even the poorest can be made to see this, and to agree that great sums gathered by some of their fellow-citizens and spent for public purposes, from which the masses reap the principal benefit, are more valuable to them than if scattered among them through the course of many years in trifling amounts through the course of many years.

If we consider what results flow from the Cooper Institute, for instance, to the best portion of the race in New York not possessed of means, and compare these with those which would have arisen for the good of the masses from an equal sum distributed by Mr. Cooper in his lifetime in the form of wages, which is the highest form of distribution, being for work done and not for charity, we can form some estimate of the possibilities for the improvement of the race which lie embedded in the present law of the accumulation of wealth. Much of this sum if distributed in small quantities among the people, would have been wasted in the indulgence of appetite, some of it in excess, and it may be doubted whether even the part put to the best use, that of adding to the comforts of the home, would have yielded results for the race, as a race, at all comparable to those which are flowing and are to flow from the Cooper Institute from generation to generation. Let the advocate of violent or radical change ponder well this thought.

We might even go so far as to take another instance, that of Mr. Tilden's bequest of five millions of dollars for a free library in the city of New York, but in referring to this one cannot help saying involuntarily, how much better if Mr. Tilden had devoted the last years of his own life to the proper administration of this immense sum; in which case neither legal contest nor any other cause of delay could have interfered with his aims. But let us assume that Mr. Tilden's millions finally become the means of giving to this city a noble public library, where the treasures of the world contained in books will be open to all forever, without money and without price. Considering the good of that part of the race which congregates in and around Manhattan Island, would its permanent benefit have been better promoted had these millions been allowed to circulate in small sums through the hands of the masses? Even the most strenuous advocate of Communism must entertain a doubt upon this subject. Most of those who think will probably entertain no doubt whatever.

Poor and restricted are our opportunities in this life; narrow our horizon; our best work most imperfect; but rich men should be thankful for one inestimable boon. They have it in their power during their lives to busy themselves in organizing benefactions from which the masses of their fellows will derive lasting advantage, and thus dignify their own lives. The highest life is probably to be reached, not by such imitation of the life of Christ as Count Tolstoi gives us, but, while animated by Christ's spirit, by recognizing the changed conditions of this age, and adopting modes of expressing this spirit suitable to the changed conditions under which we live; still laboring for the good of our fellows, which was the essence of his life and teaching, but laboring in a different manner.

"This, then, is held to be the duty of the man of Wealth: First, to set an example of modest, unostentatious living, shunning display or extravagance."

This, then, is held to be the duty of the man of Wealth: First, to set an example of modest, unostentatious living, shunning display or extravagance; to provide moderately for the legitimate wants of those dependent upon him; and after doing so to consider all surplus revenues which come to him simply as trust funds, which he is called upon to administer, and strictly bound as a matter of duty to administer in the manner which, in his judgment, is best calculated to produce the most beneficial results for the community-the man of wealth thus becoming the mere agent and trustee for his poorer brethren, bringing to their service his superior wisdom, experience and ability to administer, doing for them better than they would or could do for themselves.

We are met here with the difficulty of determining what are moderate sums to leave to members of the family; what is modest, unostentatious living; what is the test of extravagance. There must be different standards for different conditions. The answer is that it is as impossible to name exact amounts or actions as it is to define good manners, good taste, or the rules of propriety; but, nevertheless, these are verities, well known although indefinable. Public sentiment is quick to know and to feel what offends these. So in the case of wealth. The rule in regard to good taste in the dress of men or women applies here. Whatever makes one conspicuous offends the canon. If any family be chiefly known for display, for extravagance in home, table, equipage, for enormous sums ostentatiously spent in any form upon itself, if these be its chief distinctions, we have no difficulty in estimating its nature or culture. So likewise in regard to the use or abuse of its surplus wealth, or to generous, freehanded cooperation in good public uses, or to unabated efforts to accumulate and hoard to the last, whether they administer or bequeath.

The verdict rests with the best and most enlightened public sentiment. The community will surely judge and its judgments will not often be wrong.

The best uses to which surplus wealth can be put have already been indicated. These who, would administer wisely must, indeed, be wise, for one of the serious obstacles to the improvement of our race is indiscriminate charity. It were better for mankind that the millions of the rich were thrown in to the sea than so spent as to encourage the slothful, the drunken, the unworthy. Of every thousand dollars spent in so called charity to-day, it is probable that $950 is unwisely spent; so spent, indeed as to produce the very evils which it proposes to mitigate or cure. A well-known writer of philosophic books admitted the other day that he had given a quarter of a dollar to a man who approached him as he was coming to visit the house of his friend. He knew nothing of the habits of this beggar; knew not the use that would be made of this money, although he had every reason to suspect that it would be spent improperly. This man professed to be a disciple of Herbert Spencer; yet the quarter-dollar given that night will probably work more injury than all the money which its thoughtless donor will ever be able to give in true charity will do good. He only gratified his own feelings, saved himself from annoyance,-and this was probably one of the most selfish and very worst actions of his life, for in all respects he is most worthy.

In bestowing charity, the main consideration should be to help those who will help themselves; to provide part of the means by which those who desire to improve may do so; to give those who desire to use the aids by which they may rise; to assist, but rarely or never to do all. Neither the individual nor the race is improved by almsgiving. Those worthy of assistance, except in rare cases, seldom require assistance. The really valuable men of the race never do, except in cases of accident or sudden change. Every one has, of course, cases of individuals brought to his own knowledge where temporary assistance can do genuine good, and these he will not overlook. But the amount which can be wisely given by the individual for individuals is necessarily limited by his lack of knowledge of the circumstances connected with each. He is the only true reformer who is as careful and as anxious not to aid the unworthy as he is to aid the worthy, and, perhaps, even more so, for in alms-giving more injury is probably done by rewarding vice than by relieving virtue.

The rich man is thus almost restricted to following the examples of Peter Cooper, Enoch Pratt of Baltimore, Mr. Pratt of Brooklyn, Senator Stanford, and others, who know that the best means of benefiting the community is to place within its reach the ladders upon which the aspiring can rise-parks, and means of recreation, by which men are helped in body and mind; works of art, certain to give pleasure and improve the public taste, and public institutions of various kinds, which will improve the general condition of the people; in this manner returning their surplus wealth to the mass of their fellows in the forms best calculated to do them lasting good.

"The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced."

Thus is the problem of Rich and Poor to be solved. The laws of accumulation will be left free; the laws of distribution free. Individualism will continue, but the millionaire will be but a trustee for the poor; intrusted for a season with a great part of the increased wealth of the community, but administering it for the community far better than it could or would have done for itself. The best minds will thus have reached a stage in the development of the race which it is clearly seen that there is no mode of disposing of surplus wealth creditable to thoughtful and earnest men into whose hands it flows save by using it year by year for the general good. This day already dawns. But a little while, and although, without incurring the pity of their fellows, men may die sharers in great business enterprises from which their capital cannot be or has not been withdrawn, and is left chiefly at death for public uses, yet the man who dies leaving behind many millions of available wealth, which was his to administer during life, will pass away " unwept, unhonored, and unsung," no matter to what uses he leaves the dross which he cannot take with him. Of such as these the public verdict will then be: "The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced."

Such, in my opinion, is the true Gospel concerning Wealth, obedience to which is destined some day to solve the problem of the Rich and the Poor, and to bring "Peace on earth, among men good will."

This essay was originally published in the North American Review (as "Wealth"), Vol. CXLVIII, June 1889. It was reprinted in Andrew Carnegie, The Gospel of Wealth and Other Timely Essays, ed. Andrew C. Kirkland (Cambridge, Mass.: 1962).

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The Gospel of Wealth | Carnegie Corporation of New York

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Originally titled simply "Wealth" and published in the North American Review in June 1889, Andrew Carnegie's essay "The Gospel of Wealth" is considered a foundational document in the field of philanthropy. Carnegie believed in giving wealth away during one's lifetime, and this essay includes one of his most famous quotes, "The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced."

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Negative term for wealthy business owners during the Gilded Age who made fortunes by monopolizing huge industries through unethical business practices

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Robber baron (industrialist) - Wikipedia

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The term robber baron derives from the Raubritter ( robber knights), the medieval German lords who charged nominally illegal tolls (unauthorized by the Holy Roman Emperor) on the primitive roads crossing their lands or larger tolls along the Rhine river - all without adding anything of value, but instead lining their pockets at the cost of the common good ( rent seeking).

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Created by President LBJ to improve the social welfare safety net in the USA.

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Vastly more powerful than atomic bombs. Capable of destroying entire cities and permanently irradiating countries.

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Significantly more powerful than past weapons. First used in Hiroshima.

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Belief that if one country becomes Communist its neighbors would also become communist.

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Military alliance between countries in Eastern Europe and the USSR.

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Successor to the League of Nations. Exists to solve the world’s political problems.

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Created the World Bank and IMF to solve the world’s economic problems.

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Supreme Court Case that ended the segregation of schools.

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Theory that if one country uses nuclear weapons other countries will use them as well effectively ending the world as we know it.

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Theory that communism must be prevented from spreading to other countries and that the USA must use military force to stop it if necessary.

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Named by Winston Churchill. This is the metaphorical demarcation between communism and democracy in Europe.

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Globally centered groups that try to solve world problems.

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The death and destruction of six million jews and five million other people by the Nazis during WWII.

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Military alliance primarily between the USA and Western Europe.