Robber baron

A robber baron, sometimes called the captains of industry, was originally a feudal lord who engaged in robbery. The term was revived in the 19th century in the United States, where it was a pejorative used of businessmen who engaged in reportedly unscrupulous tactics in business operations and on the stock market to amass a huge personal fortune. A large part of their wealth also came from the industries they built, many owning a large majority of their respective industry. Some robber barons later evolved into great philanthropists.

Though public opinion has long been against these people, there are some historians who argue that these people made America into a world power at the beginning of the 20th century, because of their large investments in industry and the American people.

List of famous robber barons:

• John Jacob Astor
• Edward Henry Harriman
• James Fisk
• Leland Stanford
• Jay Gould
• Cornelius Vanderbilt
• Collis P. Huntington
• Andrew Carnegie
• James J. Hill
• J.P. Morgan - Refused to loan government money. Son of a banker. Avoided fighting in the Civil War. Profitted from the war. Owned banks so large, loaned money to other banks. Owned all but 40,000 miles of railroad tracks.
• Jay Cooke
• John D. Rockefeller
• Daniel Drew
• Henry Flagler