The First Tycoon

When Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794–1877) is mentioned today, the educated public, including members of the history community, surely have immediate negative thoughts. The popular view is that he was a bona fide robber baron, another Jay Gould or John D. Rockefeller. Contemporaries, too, often hated or feared Vanderbilt or at least considered him an unmannered brute. While Vanderbilt could be a rascal, combative and cunning, he was much more a builder than a wrecker. And he possessed other admirable traits, including being honorable, shrewd, and hardworking. T. J. Stiles has created a massive life-and-times biography that traces the long and varied Horatio Alger–like career of Vanderbilt from his earliest ventures in transportation, small sailing craft in New York harbor, to his activities with steamboats, ships, and railroads. What is especially telling about Vanderbilt is that he lived and breathed business, and his overall business thinking was consistent. Vanderbilt was at heart a laissez-faire capitalist, fighting water monopolies early on and continuing to do so in the dawning railway age. A key to Vanderbilt's success was his ability to control costs, a talent shared by James J. Hill and a select group of other entrepreneurs

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• Political Economy in Prehistory

  Timothy Earle, M Spriggs•Current Anthropology•2015

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