Cornelius Vanderbilt, also called the Commodore, is considered as one of the richest Americans in history. He was born in New York in 1794 and died in 1877, making over $100 million, which some equate to over $100 billion in money now.
Vanderbilt started out by ferrying passengers around New York with his own boat. In the War of 1812, he expanded and started to ferry supplies to government outposts. He started to move away from the ferry business and instead started to work with steamships with Thomas Gibbons. Working with him for over 10 years, he managed steamships and fought against a monopoly owned by Ogden. This led to the landmark Supreme Court case Gibbons v. Ogden, asserting the court's right to regulate navigation and overturn monopolies.
While managing part of Gibbons business, Vanderbilt learned enough to start his own steamship company in 1829. From the industrial revolution, textile mills became extremely prevalent in the North, while the South supplied raw cotton. In order to transport between the two regions, Vanderbilt started to gain control of railroads along with maintaining control of steamboats in New York. One prominent railroad was the Stonington railroad, which he took over by driving down its stock price. During the California gold rush in 1849, Vanderbilt brought his steamships to also go across the ocean, through Nicaragua, which was much faster than any other transportation at the time.
Vanderbilt gained control of many different railroads such as the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad. Buying out other railroads, the Commodore was very effective in consolidating lines and making them more valuable and profitable. Occasionally, he would employ ruthless means to gain control of railroads, such as when cut off the New York Central railroad’s passengers and freight, forcing them to capitulate. He would often undercut other railroads prices as well. In 1871, he built the Grand Central Depot in Manhattan, which was later replaced into current-day Grand Central Terminal.
Vanderbilt became involved in the Erie Railroad War of 1868 in which he fought for control of the railroad against Jim Fisk and Jay Gould. Fisk and Gould started to water down the Erie stock, which Vanderbilt continued to buy as the stock was lessening its value. Despite being humiliated, Vanderbilt was able to recoup his losses with a lawsuit.
Part of his wealth went to found current Vanderbilt University, located in Nashville, Tennessee. Vanderbilt’s legacy as a huge businessman was left through his family, passing a lot of his fortune into his sons. Some of his descendants are still alive, such as James Vanderbilt, a well-known screenwriter.
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I enjoyed reading your article as it was clear and concise and added to our class discussions. Throughout this unit, and more so while reading this blog post, I have found it interesting how many of the industry leaders came from very modest upbringings to the point where they controlled major industries and built the national economy we have today. Another example, other than Vanderbilt, was John Rockefeller. He was born to a father (who was a traveling salesman) and Rockefeller took up small, common jobs for much of his upbringing. However he gained his enormous wealth after he took the chance on starting Standard Oil, an oil refinery, soon after the first oil well was drilled. This shows how America did bring opportunities for some people, just maybe not for the majority.
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https://www.history.com/topics/early-20th-century-us/john-d-rockefeller
I thought this article was very in-depth and interesting. One thing you said was that he left his fortune to his sons, so I was wondering how successful his sons were and what they did with his fortune. The one who received the most, William Henry Vanderbilt, was bequeathed $90 million while his other sons received $7.5 million. What was interesting is that at first, Cornelius did not believe in William's ability to run the family business at first. However, after he was sent to a farm by his father after he married, he turned a profit and his father became impressed. He also went into the railroad business, which turned big after his father's death and he inherited the money. By the time he died, the family fortune doubled. It was interesting to see how Vanderbilt's family succeeded even after Cornelius's death.
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https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Henry-Vanderbilt
I really enjoyed reading your article as it gives good insight into Vanderbilt and what businesses he ran and wealth he obtained. Similar to Vanderbilt was Andrew Carnegie. He began his life as an immigrant moving from Scotland after being impoverished by the power loom. After immigrating over, Carnegie educated himself and built a steel empire after finding out that steel was the future. He managed to make the biggest steel business at the time, creating the first steel factories. Both these men show that there was a great amount of opportunity in America, but the successful were only a minority while the majority remained poor.
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https://www.britannica.com/biography/Andrew-Carnegie