Cornelius Vanderbilt

Cornelius Vanderbilt was one of the largest industrial giants of the 19^th century. He was born on Staten Island, New York, in the year of 1794, and began in a poor family working with his father, shuttling supplies with a ferry in New York harbor. When Vanderbilt was 16 years old, he bought a ferry of his own called the “Swiftsure.” He received the nickname “Commodore” for his determination and zeal as he worked in the shipping industry. In 1813, Vanderbilt was married to his cousin, Sophia Johnson, and throughout their lives they had a total of 13 children. Vanderbilt continued to develop his business, which was now a steamship company and grew very wealthy. As his empire grew, Vanderbilt saw that steamboats would not always have the same success that they currently did, and that very soon the business would decline, so he sold his steamboat shares and jumped into the railroad trade. Because railroads could go much farther than ships, he grew to the top of that enterprise in short order, and before long became known for his great undertakings. Vanderbilt owned a great many railway lines between New York and Chicago, and he was smart in how he arranged his railroads, instead of just having several extensive ones, he made many short lines so that time could be saved. As he grew older, unlike other industrial giants who would follow him, he did not put his vast fortune into charitable organizations, although something he did donate to, was the construction of the Vanderbilt University in Tennessee. When he died on January 4, 1877, having lived to be 82, he was buried in Dorp Staten Island at the Moravian Cemetery, his $100 million fortune went to his son William Vanderbilt. Cornelius Vanderbilt was an amazing business man who truly understood economics, equipped with that knowledge he rose to the top of two competitive industries, something neither Rockefeller or Carnegie succeeded in doing. One thing that I admire about him was how he observed and saw that steamships would soon lose popularity as trains would emerge as a top of choice of travel. I also admire how he did not lose any time in acting, when he saw what needed to be done, he did in short order. One reason why I think Vanderbilt stayed so successful, was because he did not have the antitrust laws trying to drag him down, those who would follow him had to fight those laws and some were greatly harmed by them. Sometimes Vanderbilt was very harsh on those who were below him, likely because of greed, and he showed both positive and negative tendencies, but over all, he was an excellent businessman who worked hard to be at the top of his industry, so much so, that he drove all of his competition to the ground and emerged as the richest man that America had ever seen.

Information Gathered from the Ron Paul curriculum 8^th grade history class.