From the Gilded Age to the Digital Age: Why America has always loved its tycoons
Here’s a look at some of most famous pioneers, good and bad, in America’s short but dense history.
For better or for worse, America’s history is stitched together by the stories of people who refused to sit back and accept the norm.
From oil barons to railroad pioneers, the nation’s rise is inseparable from those who built vast empires, often through intimidation. These were the architects of modern capitalism, the ones who pushed ‘The American Dream’, and paved the road for the way things are today.
One of the wealthiest Americans of all time, John D. Rockefeller didn’t just sell oil, he turned control into an industry.
Through secret deals he turned his company, Standard Oil, into a near-monopoly, refining 90% of oil in the country before laws finally took it apart. His power was os great in America his name is still associated with ‘New World Order’ conspiracy theories to this day.
J.P. Morgan was less an oil merchant than a puppeteer. He didn’t just run a number of banks: he ran the financial jugular vein of America. When markets wobbled, Morgan stabilised them—not out of kindness, but because the system was built by him for his own protection. He created U.S. Steel, the world’s first billion-dollar corporation and wielded huge influence in the corridors of power.
And then came Henry Ford, perhaps the most popular figure of the industrial revolution. He gave America its first truly affordable car, the Model T and perfected the assembly line, bringing the build time down from 12 hours to just 93 minutes. Yet Ford’s empire of efficiency came with it’s downsides: workers lived under strict surveillance, and his staunch anti-union ideology often turned the factory floor into a battleground.
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America still has its modern day tycoons, powerful white men with malicious intentions who look to dip their fingers in every nook and cranny of society. Some even make it into power...
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