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Robber baron is a derogatory term of social criticism originally applied to certain wealthy and powerful 19th-century American businessmen. The term appeared as early as the August 1870 issue of ''
The Atlantic Monthly ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...
'' magazine. By the late 19th century, the term was typically applied to businessmen who purportedly used exploitative practices to amass their wealth. These practices included exerting control over natural resources, influencing high levels of government, paying subsistence wages, squashing competition by acquiring their competitors to create monopolies and raise prices, and schemes to sell stock at inflated prices to unsuspecting investors. The term combines the sense of criminal ("robber") and illegitimate aristocracy (a
baron Baron is a rank of nobility or title of honour, often hereditary, in various European countries, either current or historical. The female equivalent is baroness. Typically, the title denotes an aristocrat who ranks higher than a lord or kn ...
is an illegitimate role in a republic).Worth Robert Miller, ''Populist cartoons: an illustrated history of the third-party movement in the 1890s '' (2011) p. 13


Usage

The term robber baron derives from the '' Raubritter'' (''robber knights''), the medieval German
lords Lords may refer to: * The plural of Lord Places *Lords Creek, a stream in New Hanover County, North Carolina *Lord's, English Cricket Ground and home of Marylebone Cricket Club and Middlesex County Cricket Club People *Traci Lords (born 19 ...
who charged nominally illegal tolls (unauthorized by the
Holy Roman Emperor The Holy Roman Emperor, originally and officially the Emperor of the Romans ( la, Imperator Romanorum, german: Kaiser der Römer) during the Middle Ages, and also known as the Roman-German Emperor since the early modern period ( la, Imperat ...
) on the primitive roads crossing their lands or larger tolls along the
Rhine ), Surselva, Graubünden, Switzerland , source1_coordinates= , source1_elevation = , source2 = Rein Posteriur/Hinterrhein , source2_location = Paradies Glacier, Graubünden, Switzerland , source2_coordinates= , source ...
river. The metaphor appeared as early as February 9, 1859, when ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' used it to characterize the business practices of
Cornelius Vanderbilt Cornelius Vanderbilt (May 27, 1794 – January 4, 1877), nicknamed "the Commodore", was an American business magnate who built his wealth in railroads and shipping. After working with his father's business, Vanderbilt worked his way into lead ...
. Historian T.J. Stiles says the metaphor "conjures up visions of titanic monopolists who crushed competitors, rigged markets, and corrupted government. In their greed and power, legend has it, they held sway over a helpless democracy." Hostile cartoonists might dress the offenders in royal garb to underscore the offense against democracy. The first such usage was against Vanderbilt, for taking money from high-priced, government-subsidized shippers, in order to not compete on their routes. Political cronies had been granted special shipping routes by the state, but told legislators their costs were so high that they needed to charge high prices ''and'' still receive extra money from the taxpayers as funding. Vanderbilt's private shipping company began running the same routes, charging a fraction of the price, making a large profit without taxpayer subsidy. The state-funded shippers then began paying Vanderbilt money to not ship on their route. A critic of this tactic drew a political comic depicting Vanderbilt as a feudal robber baron extracting a toll. In his 1934 book ''The Robber Barons: The Great American Capitalists 1861-1901'',
Matthew Josephson Matthew Josephson (February 15, 1899 – March 13, 1978) was an American journalist and author of works on nineteenth-century French literature and American political and business history of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Josephson popu ...
argued that the industrialists who were called robber barons have a complicated legacy in the history of American economic and social life. In the book's original foreword, he claims the robber barons:
"more or less knowingly played the leading roles in an age of industrial revolution. Even their quarrels, intrigues and misadventures (too often treated as merely diverting or picturesque) are part of the mechanism of our history. Under their hands the renovation of our economic life proceeded relentlessly : large-scale production replaced the scattered, decentralized mode of production ; industrial enterprises became more concentrated, more “efficient” technically, and essentially “coöperative,” where they had been purely individualistic and lamentably wasteful. But all this revolutionizing effort is branded with the motive of private gain on the part of the new captains of industry. To organize and exploit the resources of a nation upon a gigantic scale, to regiment its farmers and workers into harmonious corps of producers, and to do this only in the name of an uncontrolled appetite for private profit—here surely is the great inherent contradiction whence so much disaster, outrage and misery has flowed.Matthew Josephson, ''The Robber Barons: The Great American Capitalists, 1861–1901'', New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1934.
Charles R. Geisst says, "in a Darwinist age, Vanderbilt developed a reputation as a plunderer who took no prisoners." Hal Bridges said that the term represented the idea that "business leaders in the United States from about 1865 to 1900 were, on the whole, a set of avaricious rascals who habitually cheated and robbed investors and consumers, corrupted government, fought ruthlessly among themselves, and in general carried on predatory activities comparable to those of the robber barons of medieval Europe."


Criticism

Historian Richard White argues that the builders of the transcontinental railroads have attracted a great deal of attention but the interpretations are contradictory: at first very hostile and then very favorable. At first, White says, they were depicted as:


1860s–1920s

Historian John Tipple examined the writings of the 50 most influential analysts who used the robber baron model in the 1865–1914 period. He argued:
The originators of the Robber Baron concept were not the injured, the poor, the faddists, the jealous, or a dispossessed elite, but rather a frustrated group of observers led at last by protracted years of harsh depression to believe that the American dream of abundant prosperity for all was a hopeless myth. ... Thus the creation of the Robber Baron stereotype seems to have been the product of an impulsive popular attempt to explain the shift in the structure of American society in terms of the obvious. Rather than make the effort to understand the intricate processes of change, most critics appeared to slip into the easy vulgarizations of the "devil-view" of history which ingenuously assumes that all human misfortunes can be traced to the machinations of an easily located set of villains—in this case, the big businessmen of America. This assumption was clearly implicit in almost all of the criticism of the period.


1930s–1970s

American historian
Matthew Josephson Matthew Josephson (February 15, 1899 – March 13, 1978) was an American journalist and author of works on nineteenth-century French literature and American political and business history of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Josephson popu ...
further popularized the term during the Great Depression in his book, published in 1934. Josephson's view was that, like the medieval German princes, American big businessmen had amassed huge fortunes immorally, unethically, and unjustly. This theme was popular during the
Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
of the 1930s, when the public often expressed scorn for
big business Big business involves large-scale corporate-controlled financial or business activities. As a term, it describes activities that run from "huge transactions" to the more general "doing big things". In corporate jargon, the concept is commonly ...
. Historian Steve Fraser notes that the mood was sharply hostile toward big business:
Biographies of Mellon, Carnegie and Rockefeller were often laced with moral censure, warning that "tories of industry" were a threat to democracy and that parasitism, aristocratic pretension and tyranny are an inevitable consequence of concentrated wealth, whether accumulated dynastically or more impersonally by faceless corporations. This scholarship, and the cultural persuasion of which it was an expression, drew on a deeply rooted feeling that was partly religious and partly egalitarian and democratic, a sensibility stretching back to William Jennings Bryan, Andrew Jackson, and Tom Paine.
However, contrary opinions by academic historians began to appear as the Depression ended. Business historian Allan Nevins advanced the "Industrial Statesman" thesis in his ''John D. Rockefeller: The Heroic Age of American Enterprise'' (2 vols., 1940), arguing that while Rockefeller engaged in unethical and illegal business practices, he also helped to bring order to the industrial chaos of the day. According to Nevins, it was
Gilded Age In United States history, the Gilded Age was an era extending roughly from 1877 to 1900, which was sandwiched between the Reconstruction era and the Progressive Era. It was a time of rapid economic growth, especially in the Northern and Wes ...
capitalists who, by imposing order and stability on competitive business, made the United States the foremost economy by the 20th century. In 1958 Bridges reported that, "The most vehement and persistent controversy in business history has been that waged by the critics and defenders of the "robber baron" concept of the American businessman." Richard White, historian of the transcontinental railroads, stated in 2011 he has no use for the concept, which has been killed off by historians Robert Wiebe and Alfred Chandler. He notes that "Much of the modern history of corporations is a reaction against the Robber Barons and fictions."


Recent approaches

In the popular culture the metaphor continues. In 1975 the student body of
Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is conside ...
voted to use "Robber Barons" as the nickname for their sports teams. However, school administrators disallowed it, saying it was disrespectful to the school's founder, Leland Stanford. In academe, the education division of the
National Endowment for the Humanities The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is an independent federal agency of the U.S. government, established by thNational Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965(), dedicated to supporting research, education, preserv ...
has prepared a lesson plan for schools asking whether "robber baron" or " captain of industry" is the better terminology. They state:
In this lesson, you and your students will attempt to establish a distinction between robber barons and captains of industry. Students will uncover some of the less honorable deeds as well as the shrewd business moves and highly charitable acts of the great industrialists and financiers. It has been argued that only because such people were able to amass great amounts of capital could our country become the world's greatest industrial power. Some of the actions of these men, which could only happen in a period of economic laissez faire, resulted in poor conditions for workers, but in the end, may also have enabled our present day standard of living.
This debate about the morality of certain business practices has continued in the popular culture, as in the performances in Europe in 2012 by
Bruce Springsteen Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen (born September 23, 1949) is an American singer and songwriter. He has released 21 studio albums, most of which feature his backing band, the E Street Band. Originally from the Jersey Shore, he is an originato ...
, who sang about bankers as "greedy thieves" and "robber barons". During the
Occupy Wall Street Occupy Wall Street (OWS) was a protest movement against economic inequality and the influence of money in politics that began in Zuccotti Park, located in New York City's Wall Street financial district, in September 2011. It gave rise to the ...
protests of 2011, the term was used by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders in his attacks on Wall Street. The metaphor has also been used to characterize Russian businessmen allied to
Vladimir Putin Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin; (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who holds the office of president of Russia. Putin has served continuously as president or prime minister since 1999: as prime min ...
. The leaders of
Big Tech Big Tech, also known as the Tech Giants, refers to the most dominant companies in the information technology industry, mostly located in the United States. The term also refers to the four or five largest American tech companies, called the Big ...
companies have all been described as being modern-day robber barons, particularly
Jeff Bezos Jeffrey Preston Bezos ( ;; and Robinson (2010), p. 7. ''né'' Jorgensen; born January 12, 1964) is an American entrepreneur, media proprietor, investor, and commercial astronaut. He is the founder, executive chairman, and former presi ...
because of his influence on his newspaper, ''
The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large n ...
''. Their rising wealth and power stands in contrast with the shrinking middle class. In contrast, Burton W. Folsom argues that the robber barons were either political entrepreneurs (who lobby government for subsidies and monopoly rights), or market entrepreneurs (who innovate and reduce costs to provide the best good or service at the lowest price). Political entrepreneurs do long-term harm to the economy with their monopolies and subsidies. This provides politicians with a pretext to insist that increased planning and increased regulation is the appropriate remedy.


List of businessmen labelled as robber barons

The people here are listed in Josephson, ''Robber Barons'' or in the cited source. * John Jacob Astor (real estate, fur) – New York *
Andrew Carnegie Andrew Carnegie (, ; November 25, 1835August 11, 1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist. Carnegie led the expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century and became one of the richest Americans in ...
(steel) – Pittsburgh and New York * William A. Clark (copper) –
Butte __NOTOC__ In geomorphology, a butte () is an isolated hill with steep, often vertical sides and a small, relatively flat top; buttes are smaller landforms than mesas, plateaus, and tablelands. The word ''butte'' comes from a French word me ...
,
Montana Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columb ...
* Jay Cooke (finance) – Philadelphia *
Charles Crocker Charles Crocker (September 16, 1822 – August 14, 1888) was an American railroad executive who was one of the founders of the Central Pacific Railroad, which constructed the westernmost portion of the first transcontinental railroad, and took ...
(railroads) – California *
Daniel Drew Daniel Drew (July 29, 1797 – September 18, 1879) was an American businessman, steamship and railroad developer, and financier. Summarizing his life, Henry Clews wrote: "Of all the great operators of Wall Street ... Daniel Drew furnishes t ...
(finance) – New York *
Jeff Bezos Jeffrey Preston Bezos ( ;; and Robinson (2010), p. 7. ''né'' Jorgensen; born January 12, 1964) is an American entrepreneur, media proprietor, investor, and commercial astronaut. He is the founder, executive chairman, and former presi ...
(technology, retail) - Washington * James Buchanan Duke (tobacco, electric power) – Durham,
North Carolina North Carolina () is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 28th largest and List of states and territories of the United ...
*
James Dunsmuir James Dunsmuir (July 8, 1851 – June 6, 1920) was a Canadian industrialist and politician in British Columbia. He served as the 14th premier of British Columbia from 1900 to 1902 and the eighth lieutenant governor of British Columbia from ...
(coal, lumber) – Victoria, BC Canada * Marshall Field (retail) – Chicago * James Fisk (finance) – New York * Henry Morrison Flagler (Standard Oil, railroads) – New York and Florida * Henry Clay Frick (steel) – Pittsburgh and New York *
John Warne Gates John Warne Gates (May 18, 1855 – August 9, 1911), also known as "Bet-a-Million" Gates, was an American Gilded Age industrialist and gambler. He was a pioneer promoter of barbed wire. He was born and raised in what is now West Chicago, Illino ...
(barbed wire, oil) – Texas * Jay Gould (railroads) – New York * E. H. Harriman (railroads) – New York *
William Randolph Hearst William Randolph Hearst Sr. (; April 29, 1863 – August 14, 1951) was an American businessman, newspaper publisher, and politician known for developing the nation's largest newspaper chain and media company, Hearst Communications. His flamboya ...
(media mogul) – California * James J. Hill (fuel, coal, steamboats, railroads) – St Paul, Minnesota *
Charles T. Hinde Charles T. Hinde (July 12, 1832 – March 10, 1915) was an American industrialist, tycoon, riverboat captain, businessman, and entrepreneur. He managed many businesses and invested in numerous business ventures over the course of his life. H ...
(railroads, water transport, shipping, hotels) – Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, California * Mark Hopkins Jr. (railroads) – California * Collis Potter Huntington (railroads) – California * Andrew Mellon (finance, oil) – Pittsburgh * J. P. Morgan (finance, industrial consolidation) – New York *
Elon Musk Elon Reeve Musk ( ; born June 28, 1971) is a business magnate and investor. He is the founder, CEO and chief engineer of SpaceX; angel investor, CEO and product architect of Tesla, Inc.; owner and CEO of Twitter, Inc.; founder of The B ...
(technology, automotive industry) - California * John C. Osgood (coal mining, iron) – Colorado *
Henry B. Plant Henry Bradley Plant (October 27, 1819 – June 23, 1899), was a businessman, entrepreneur, and investor involved with many transportation interests and projects, mostly railroads, in the southeastern United States. He was founder of the Plant Sys ...
(railroads) – Florida * John D. Rockefeller (Standard Oil) – Cleveland, Ohio * Henry Huttleston Rogers (Standard Oil; copper), New York * A. S. W. Rosenbach (antique bookdealer) – Philadelphia *
Thomas Fortune Ryan Thomas Fortune Ryan (October 17, 1851 – November 23, 1928) was an American tobacco, insurance and transportation magnate. Although he lived in New York City for much of his adult career, Ryan was perhaps the greatest benefactor of the Roman Ca ...
(public transit, tobacco) – New York *
Russell Sage Russell Risley Sage (August 4, 1816 – July 22, 1906) was an American financier, railroad executive and Whig politician from New York. As a frequent partner of Jay Gould in various transactions, he amassed a fortune. Olivia Slocum Sage, his se ...
(finance, railroads) – New York *
Charles M. Schwab Charles Michael Schwab (February 18, 1862 – September 18, 1939) was an American steel magnate. Under his leadership, Bethlehem Steel became the second-largest steel maker in the United States, and one of the most important heavy manufacturer ...
(steel) – Pittsburgh and New York * Joseph Seligman (banking) – New York *
John D. Spreckels John Diedrich Spreckels (August 16, 1853 – June 7, 1926), the son of German-American industrialist Claus Spreckels, founded a transportation and real estate empire in San Diego, California, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The entrepr ...
(water transport, railroads, sugar) – California * Leland Stanford (railroads) – California *
Cornelius Vanderbilt Cornelius Vanderbilt (May 27, 1794 – January 4, 1877), nicknamed "the Commodore", was an American business magnate who built his wealth in railroads and shipping. After working with his father's business, Vanderbilt worked his way into lead ...
(water transport, railroads) – New York * Peter Widener (public transportation) – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania *
Charles Tyson Yerkes Charles Tyson Yerkes Jr. ( ; June 25, 1837 – December 29, 1905) was an American financier. He played a part in developing mass-transit systems in Chicago and London. Philadelphia Yerkes was born into a Quaker family in the Northern Liberties ...
(street railroads) – Chicago *
Mark Zuckerberg Mark Elliot Zuckerberg (; born ) is an American business magnate, internet entrepreneur, and philanthropist. He is known for co-founding the social media website Facebook and its parent company Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook, Inc.), of ...
(technology) – CaliforniaDavid Horsey
"Taking down Zuckerberg’s monster" ''The Seattle Times'' Dec. 11, 2020
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See also

*
Business magnate A business magnate, also known as a tycoon, is a person who has achieved immense wealth through the ownership of multiple lines of enterprise. The term characteristically refers to a powerful entrepreneur or investor who controls, through per ...
* Business oligarch * Media proprietor


References


Further reading

* Beatty, Jack. (2008). ''Age of Betrayal: The Triumph of Money in America, 1865–1900''
Vintage Books Vintage Books is a trade paperback publishing imprint of Penguin Random House originally established by Alfred A. Knopf in 1954. The company was purchased by Random House in April 1960, and a British division was set up in 1990. After Random Ho ...
. * Bridges, Hal. (1958) "The Robber Baron Concept in American History" ''Business History Review'' (1958) 32#1 pp. 1–1
in JSTOR
* Burlingame, D.F. Ed. (2004). ''Philanthropy in America: A comprehensive historical encyclopaedia'' (3 vol. ABC Clio). * Cochran, Thomas C. (1949) "The Legend of the Robber Barons." ''Explorations in Economic History'' 1#5 (1949
online
* Fraser, Steve. (2015). ''The Age of Acquiescence: The Life and Death of American Resistance to Organized Wealth and Power''
Little, Brown and Company Little, Brown and Company is an American publishing company founded in 1837 by Charles Coffin Little and James Brown in Boston. For close to two centuries it has published fiction and nonfiction by American authors. Early lists featured Emily ...
. * Harvey, Charles, et al. "Andrew Carnegie and the foundations of contemporary entrepreneurial philanthropy." ''Business History'' 53.3 (2011): 425–450
online
* Jones, Peter d'A. ed. (1968). ''The Robber Barons Revisited'' (1968) excerpts from primary and secondary sources. * Marinetto, M. (1999). "The historical development of business philanthropy: Social responsibility in the new corporate economy" ''Business History'' 41#4, 1–20. * Ostrower, F. (1995). ''Why the wealthy give: The culture of elite philanthropy'' (Princeton UP). * Ostrower, F. (2002). ''Trustees of culture: Power, wealth and status on elite arts boards'' (U of Chicago: Press). * Josephson, Matthew. (1934). ''The Robber Barons: The Great American Capitalists, 1861–1901'' * * Wren, D.A. (1983) "American business philanthropy and higher education in the nineteenth century" ''Business History Review''. 57#3 321–346. * Zinn, Howard. (2005). "Chapter 11: Robber Barons and Rebels" from ''
A People's History of the United States '' A People's History of the United States'' is a 1980 nonfiction book by American historian and political scientist Howard Zinn. In the book, Zinn presented what he considered to be a different side of history from the more traditional "fund ...
'' Harper Perennial.


External links


Full Show: The New Robber Barons
''
Moyers & Company ''Moyers & Company'' was a commentary and interview television show hosted by Bill Moyers, and broadcast via syndication on public television stations in the United States. The weekly show covered current affairs affecting everyday Americans, and ...
.'' December 19, 2014. Interview with historian Steve Fraser
Industrial Age in America: Robber Barons or Captains of Industry
EDSITEment lesson from
National Endowment for the Humanities The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is an independent federal agency of the U.S. government, established by thNational Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965(), dedicated to supporting research, education, preserv ...
*
Robber Barons, Oil, and Power from 1860
- Daniel Sheehan, University of California Santa Cruz, "The Trajectory of Justice in America 2019, Class #5"''
college-level lectures on Robber Barons
{{DEFAULTSORT:Robber Baron (Industrialist) 1870s neologisms Business terms * 19th century in the United States Industrial history of the United States Social class in the United States Class-related slurs