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Robber Baron (industrialist)

 
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Robber baron is a term that revived in the 19th century in the United States
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
 as a reference to businessmen and bankers who dominated their respective industries
Industry

An industry is the manufacturing of a Good or Service within a category. Although industry is a broad term for any kind of economic production, in economics and urban planning industry is a synonym for the secondary sector, which is a type of economic activity involved in the manufacturing of raw materials into goods and products....
 and amassed huge personal fortunes, typically as a direct result of pursuing various anti-competitive or unfair business practices
Unfair business practices

Unfair business practices encompass fraud, misrepresentation, and oppressive or unconscionability acts or practices by business, often against consumers and are prohibited by law in many countries....
. The term may now be used in relation to any businessman or banker who is perceived to have used questionable business practices or scams in order to become powerful or wealthy (placing them in power of everything having controlled most business affairs.)

The term derives from the medieval German
Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands....
 lords who illegally charged exorbitant toll
Toll

The word toll has several meanings.*In the context of transportation:**toll , a fee charged for the use of a piece of road transportation infrastructure...
s against ships traversing the Rhine
Rhine

File:Swiss Grand Canyon.jpgThe Rhine is one of the longest and most important rivers in Europe, at , with an average discharge of more than ....
 river (see robber baron
Robber baron

The term robber baron dates back to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. They abused their positions by stopping passing merchant ships and demanding wiktionary:toll without being authorized by the Holy Roman Emperor to do so....
).






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Robber baron is a term that revived in the 19th century in the United States
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
 as a reference to businessmen and bankers who dominated their respective industries
Industry

An industry is the manufacturing of a Good or Service within a category. Although industry is a broad term for any kind of economic production, in economics and urban planning industry is a synonym for the secondary sector, which is a type of economic activity involved in the manufacturing of raw materials into goods and products....
 and amassed huge personal fortunes, typically as a direct result of pursuing various anti-competitive or unfair business practices
Unfair business practices

Unfair business practices encompass fraud, misrepresentation, and oppressive or unconscionability acts or practices by business, often against consumers and are prohibited by law in many countries....
. The term may now be used in relation to any businessman or banker who is perceived to have used questionable business practices or scams in order to become powerful or wealthy (placing them in power of everything having controlled most business affairs.)

The term derives from the medieval German
Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands....
 lords who illegally charged exorbitant toll
Toll

The word toll has several meanings.*In the context of transportation:**toll , a fee charged for the use of a piece of road transportation infrastructure...
s against ships traversing the Rhine
Rhine

File:Swiss Grand Canyon.jpgThe Rhine is one of the longest and most important rivers in Europe, at , with an average discharge of more than ....
 river (see robber baron
Robber baron

The term robber baron dates back to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. They abused their positions by stopping passing merchant ships and demanding wiktionary:toll without being authorized by the Holy Roman Emperor to do so....
). There has been some dispute over the term's origin and use. It was popularized by U.S. political and economic commentator Matthew Josephson
Matthew Josephson

Matthew Josephson was an American journalist and author of works on nineteenth-century French literature and twentieth-century American economic history....
 during The Great Depression in a 1934 book. He attributed its first use to an 1880 anti-monopoly
Monopoly

In economics, a monopoly exists when a specific individual or enterprise has sufficient control over a particular product or service to determine significantly the terms on which other individuals shall have access to it....
 pamphlet in which Kansas
Kansas

The State of Kansas is a Midwestern U.S. state in the Central United States of the United States of America, an area often referred to as the United States "Heartland"....
 farmers applied the term to railroad magnates. The informal term captains of industry
Captain of industry

"Captain of industry" was a term originally used in the United States during the Industrial Revolution describing a business leader whose means of amassing a personal fortune contributes positively to the country in some way....
 may sometimes be used to avoid the negative connotation
Connotation

Connotation is a Subjectivity culture and/or emotional coloration in addition to the explicit or denotation Meaning of any specific word or phrase in a...
s of "robber baron". Recently the term "Robber 'Boomer' Baron" has been used to describe the undisciplined greed of financial 'robbers' during the financial meltdown in 2008 and 2009.

Appearing in literature during the late 19th century, the Robber Baron thesis was popular until the 1940s. Matthew Josephson
Matthew Josephson

Matthew Josephson was an American journalist and author of works on nineteenth-century French literature and twentieth-century American economic history....
's The Robber Barons gave the term its most enduring expression. The theme had much popularity during the Great Depression
Great Depression

File:International depression.pngThe Great Depression was a worldwide economic Recession starting in most places in 1929 and ending at different times in the 1930s or early 1940s for different countries....
 as there was widespread public scorn against big business
Big Business

Big Business is a term used to describe large corporations, in either an individual or collective sense. The term first came into use in a symbolic sense subsequent to the American Civil War, particularly after 1880, in connection with the combination movement that began in American business at that time....
.

But by the end of the Great Depression, other historians, notably Allan Nevins
Allan Nevins

Allan Nevins was an United States historian and journalist.Nevins earned an M.A. in English in 1913 from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign....
, began advocating the "Industrial Statesman" thesis. Nevins, in his John D. Rockefeller: The Heroic Age of American Enterprise (2 vols., 1940), took on Josephson directly. He argued that while Rockefeller may have engaged in unethical and illegal business practices, this should not overshadow his greater contribution of bringing order to the industrial chaos of the day. Gilded Age
Gilded Age

The Gilded Age was a time period when some activity or skill was at its peak. The wealth polarization derived primarily from industrial and population expansion.The businessmen of the Second Industrial Revolution created industrial towns and cities in the Northeastern United States with new factories, and contributed to the creation of an ethnica...
 capitalists, according to Nevins, sought to impose their will for order and stability on the competitive business environment. Their work ultimately made the United States the foremost economy by the twentieth century.

The whole Robber-Baron-or-Industrial-Statesman debate was sidestepped by Alfred D. Chandler in The Visible Hand
The Visible Hand

The Visible Hand is a business book by Alfred Chandler with the sub-title The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business ....
 (1977). There Chandler contended that the business of industrializing America was a historical process and not a morality play of good versus evil. As he later expressed, "What could be less likely to produce useful generalizations than a debate over vaguely defined moral issues based on unexamined ideological assumptions and presuppositions?"

Jpmorgan

List of businessmen who were called robber barons

  • John D. Spreckels
    John D. Spreckels

    John Diedrich Spreckels , the son of American industrialist Claus Spreckels, founded a transportation and real estate empire in San Diego, California in the late 19th and early 20th centuries....
     (San Diego transportation, water, media) – San Diego, California
    San Diego, California

    San Diego is the second largest city in California and the List of United States cities by population, located along the Pacific Ocean on the West Coast of the United States of the Western United States....
  • John Jacob Astor
    John Jacob Astor

    For other pages relating to Astor, see John Jacob Astor 'John Jacob Astor' was the first prominent member of the Astor family and the first multi-millionaire in the United States....
     (real estate, fur) – New York City
    New York City

    The City of New York is the List of United States cities by population in the United States, while the New York metropolitan area ranks among the List of urban areas by population....
  • Andrew Carnegie
    Andrew Carnegie

    Andrew Carnegie was a Scotland-born United States industrialist, List of business people, and a major philanthropist. He was an immigrant as a child with his parents....
     (railroads, steel) – Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
    Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

    Pittsburgh is the second largest city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania with a population of 312,819. The population of the seven-county metropolitan area is 2,462,571....
  • Jay Cooke
    Jay Cooke

    Jay Cooke , United States financier, was born at Sandusky, Ohio, the son of Eleutheros Cooke , a pioneer Ohio lawyer and Whig Party member of Congress from that state in 1831-1833 and member of the Ohio General Assembly....
     (finance) – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
    Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

    Philadelphia is the largest city in Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population city in the United States. It is the fifth-largest metropolitan area and fourth-largest urban area by population in the United States, the nation's fourth-largest consumer media market as ranked by the Nielsen Media Research, and the 49th-most...
  • Daniel Drew
    Daniel Drew

    Daniel Drew was an American financier....
     (finance) – New York
    New York

    The State of New York is a U.S. state in the Mid-Atlantic States and Northeastern United States regions of the United States and is the nation's List of U.S....
     state
  • James Buchanan Duke
    James Buchanan Duke

    James Buchanan Duke was a United States of America tobacco and electric power industrialist best known for his involvement with Duke University....
     (tobacco) – near Durham, North Carolina
    Durham, North Carolina

    Durham is a city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. It is the county seat of Durham County, North Carolina and also extends into Wake County, North Carolina county....
  • James Fisk
    James Fisk (financier)

    James Fisk, Jr. , known variously as "Big Jim," "Diamond Jim," and "Jubilee Jim," was an American stock broker and corporate executive....
     (finance) – New York state
  • Henry Flagler (railroads, oil
    Oil

    An oil is a chemical substance that is in a viscosity liquid state at room temperature or slightly warmer, and is both hydrophobic and lipophilic ....
    , the Standard Oil
    Standard Oil

    Standard Oil was a predominant United States integrated petroleum producing, transporting, refining, and marketing company. Established in 1870 as an Ohio Corporation, it was the largest oil refiner in the world and operated as a major company trust and was one of the world's first and largest multinational corporations until it was broken up...
     company) – New York City and Palm Beach, Florida
    Palm Beach, Florida

    The Town of Palm Beach is an upscale incorporated town in Palm Beach County, Florida, Florida, United States. The Intracoastal Waterway separates it from the neighboring cities of West Palm Beach, Florida and Lake Worth, Florida....
  • Henry Ford
    Henry Ford

    Henry Ford was the United States founder of the Ford Motor Company and father of modern assembly lines used in mass production. His introduction of the Model T History of the automobile revolutionized transportation and American industry....
     (automobile) – Dearborn, Michigan
    Dearborn, Michigan

    Dearborn is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is located in the Metro Detroit and Wayne County, Michigan, and is the tenth largest city in the U.S....
     and metropolitan Detroit, Michigan
    Detroit, Michigan

    Detroit is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the county seat of Wayne County, Michigan. Detroit is a major port city on the Detroit River, in the Midwestern United States of the United States....
  • Henry Clay Frick
    Henry Clay Frick

    Henry Clay Frick was an United States Robber baron and art patron, once known as "America's most hated man"....
     (steel) – Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and New York City
  • John Warne Gates
    John Warne Gates

    John Warne Gates , also known as "Bet-a-Million" Gates, was a pioneer promoter of barbed wire who became a Gilded Age industrialist. Gates was born in Winfield, Illinois and married Delora R....
     (steel, oil) – Chicago
    Chicago

    Chicago is the largest city in the U.S. state of Illinois and the Midwestern United States, as well as the List of United States cities by population city in the United States with more than 2.8 million residents....
     and Texas
    Texas

    Texas is a U.S. state located in the South Central United States, nicknamed the Lone Star State. Texas is the second largest U.S. state in both area and population, spanning , and with a growing population of 24.3 million residents....
  • Jay Gould
    Jay Gould

    Jason "Jay" Gould was an American financier who became a leading American railroad developer and speculator. Although he was long vilified as an archetypal Robber baron , modern historians have discounted various myths about him and evaluated his career more positively....
     (finance, railroads) – New York (both state and city)
  • Edward Henry Harriman (railroads) – New York state
  • Collis P. Huntington
    Collis P. Huntington

    Collis Potter Huntington was one of the Big Four of western railroading who built the Central Pacific Railroad as part of the first U.S. First Transcontinental Railroad....
     (railroads) – California
    California

    California is a U.S. state on the West Coast of the United States of the United States, along the Pacific Ocean. It is bordered by Oregon to the north, Nevada to the east, Arizona to the southeast, and to the south the Mexico state of Baja California....
    , Virginia
    Virginia

    The Commonwealth of Virginia is an United States U.S. state on the East Coast of the United States of the Southern United States. The state is known as the "Old Dominion" and sometimes as "Mother of Presidents", because it is the birthplace of Lists of United States Presidents by place of birth#By state....
    , and New York
  • Mark Hopkins
    Mark Hopkins

    Mark Hopkins, Junior was one of four principal investors who formed the Central Pacific Railroad along with Leland Stanford, Charles Crocker, and Collis Huntington in 1861....
     (railroads) - California
    California

    California is a U.S. state on the West Coast of the United States of the United States, along the Pacific Ocean. It is bordered by Oregon to the north, Nevada to the east, Arizona to the southeast, and to the south the Mexico state of Baja California....
  • Charles Crocker
    Charles Crocker

    Charles Crocker was an American railroad Senior management....
     (railroads) - California
    California

    California is a U.S. state on the West Coast of the United States of the United States, along the Pacific Ocean. It is bordered by Oregon to the north, Nevada to the east, Arizona to the southeast, and to the south the Mexico state of Baja California....
  • Leland Stanford
    Leland Stanford

    Amasa Leland Stanford was an American tycoon, politician and founder of Stanford University....
     (railroads) – Sacramento, California
    Sacramento, California

    Sacramento is the Capital of the United States U.S. state of California, and the county seat of Sacramento County, California. Located along the Sacramento River and just south of the American River's confluence in California's expansive California Central Valley, it is the seventh-largest city in California.....
     and San Francisco, California
    San Francisco, California

    The City and County of San Francisco is the fourth most populous city in California and the List of United States cities by population in the United States, with a 2007 estimated population of 799,183....
  • John D. Rockefeller
    John D. Rockefeller

    John Davison Rockefeller was an United States industrialist and philanthropist. Rockefeller revolutionized the petroleum industry and defined the structure of modern philanthropy....
     (railroads) Standard Oil
    Standard Oil

    Standard Oil was a predominant United States integrated petroleum producing, transporting, refining, and marketing company. Established in 1870 as an Ohio Corporation, it was the largest oil refiner in the world and operated as a major company trust and was one of the world's first and largest multinational corporations until it was broken up...
  • Cornelius Vanderbilt
    Cornelius Vanderbilt

    Cornelius Vanderbilt , also known by the sobriquets Commodore or Commodore Vanderbilt, was an United States entrepreneur who built his wealth in shipping and Rail transport and was the patriarch of the Vanderbilt family....
     (railroads)


In popular culture

In popular American culture, robber barons were usually depicted as men in suits with black top hats and cane
Cane

A cane is a long, straight wooden stick, generally of bamboo, or some similar plant, mainly used as a support, such as a walking stick, or as an instrument of corporal punishment....
s as typified by Rich Uncle Pennybags
Rich Uncle Pennybags

Rich Uncle Pennybags is the rotund old man in a top hat who serves as the mascot of the game Monopoly . Rich Uncle Pennybags was rechristened Mr....
, the icon for the board game Monopoly
Monopoly (game)

Monopoly is a board game published by Parker Brothers, a subsidiary of Hasbro. Players compete to acquire wealth through stylized economics activity involving the buying, renting, and trading of property using play money, as players take turns moving around the board according to the roll of the dice....
.

In 1975, students at Stanford University
Stanford University

Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private university research university located in Stanford, California, California, United States....
 held an election to choose a mascot for the athletic teams and voted for Robber Barons. The university's administration refused to implement the vote, and the teams remain without an official mascot, instead being referred to as the Cardinal. (The university's colors are cardinal and white.)

See also

  • Business magnate
    Business magnate

    A business magnate, sometimes referred to as a mogul, tycoon, baron, or industrialist, is a partially informal term used to refer to a person who has reached a prominent place in a particular industry and whose wealth has been derived primarily therefrom....
  • Industrialist
  • The Law of the Jungle
    The Law of the Jungle

    "The Law of the Jungle" is usually an expression that means "every one for himself" and "anything goes" .However, Rudyard Kipling in The Jungle Book uses it to mean an actual law code used by wolves and other animals in the jungles of India....