Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Rise of Industrialization

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Business Ethics from the 19th Century to Today

  • 510 Accesses

Abstract

During the late 1880s in America, robber barons allegedly held sway. The new large-scale businesses, such as railroads, evoked fear. Railroad stocks and bonds created opportunities for wealth and also for chicanery, as few Americans understood the intricacies of such financial instruments. Burton Folsom’s The Myth of the Robber Barons distinguished between the robber barons, who supped at the government troughs and true entrepreneurs who produced desired items at relatively low costs. Despite the corruption between government and businesspeople, living standards rose.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 89.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 119.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 119.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    For alternative explanations, see Schumpeter ([1934] 1983, 93); Sombart (1930, III:200); Bridges (1958, 10).

  2. 2.

    Gras provided the full quote in its context (Gras 1945, 113).

  3. 3.

    Charles and Mary Beard also studied the business leaders of the early twentieth century (Beard and Beard [1927] 1933, II:175).

  4. 4.

    Chandler identified just eight nationwide trusts: cattle, cordage, petroleum, cottonseed oil, linseed oil, sugar, whiskey, and lead processing. The first two trusts proved ephemeral (Chandler 1977, 320).

  5. 5.

    Charles Sabel and Jonathan Zeitlin argued that there were alternatives to mass production. They observed that mass production did not eliminate all small firms (Sabel and Zeitlin 1985, 137, 155–165).

  6. 6.

    The Ford family continued to play a role in managing the auto company for a few generations; Radio Corporation of America’s (RCA’s) David Sarnoff tried to pass power to his son. In most cases, family-owned business might be fortunate enough to have a sufficiently competent son to carry on the firm, but the good fortune needed for a third or fourth generation of talented progeny proved too elusive for many companies.

  7. 7.

    Du Boff observed that newspaper editors had to compete with investors for scarce wire time (476).

  8. 8.

    Of course, Americans probably feel the same way about business ethics in developing countries, as witness American disdain for paying or receiving bribes in foreign countries, never mind the fact that bribery was prevalent throughout American history.

  9. 9.

    Interestingly enough, the Disney version of Davy Crockett, King of the Frontier had a character named Thimblerig accompany him to the Alamo. Whether Davy should have included such a character in his entourage never occurred to little boys of the 1950s and 1960s or, apparently, to their parents. At least it was the great character actor, Hans Conried, in the role as Thimblerig. Conried would later voice Snidely Whiplash, Dudley Do Right’s nemesis.

Bibliography

  • Adams, Charles F., Jr. “Railroad Inflation.” North American Review. No. CCXXIL, January 1869, 130–164.

    Google Scholar 

  • Adams, Charles F., Jr. “The Granger Movement.” North American Review Vol. 120, No. 247, April 1875, 394–424.

    Google Scholar 

  • Andreano, Ralph. “A Note on the Horatio Alger Legend: Statistical Studies of Nineteenth Century American Business Elite.” Business Enterprise and Economic Change: Essays in Honor of Harold F. Williamson, edited by Louis Cain and Paul Uselding (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1973), 227–246.

    Google Scholar 

  • Beard, Charles and Mary Beard. The Rise of American Civilization (New York, NY: Macmillan, [1927] 1933), 2 vols.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bridges, Hal. “The Robber Baron Concept in American History.” Business History Review XXXI(1), Spring 1958, 1–13.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bruchey, Stuart. “Success and Failure Factors: American Merchants in Foreign Trade in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries.” Business History Review XXXII(3), Autumn 1958, 272–292.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bulletin of the Business Historical Society. “Business and the Coffee House.” II(3), May 1928, 11–13. No author.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chandler, Alfred Jr. The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1977).

    Google Scholar 

  • Cochrane, Thomas. “Some Social Attitudes of Railroad Administrators at the End of the Nineteenth Century.” Bulletin of the Business History Society 17(1), January 1943. 15–21.

    Google Scholar 

  • Currie, Archibald. “British Attitudes Toward Investment in North American Railroads.” Business History Review XXIV(2), Summer 1960, 194–215.

    Google Scholar 

  • Destler, Chester. “Entrepreneurial Leadership Among the ‘Robber Barons’: A Trial Balance.” Journal of Economic History (6), Supplement: The Tasks of Economic History, May 1946, 28–49.

    Google Scholar 

  • Du Boff, Richard. “Business Demand and the Development of the Telegraph in the United States, 1844–1860.” Business History Review 54(4), Winter 1980, 459–479).

    Google Scholar 

  • Ferguson, Niall. The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World (New York, NY: Penguin Press, 2008).

    Google Scholar 

  • Folsom, Burton Jr. The Myth of the Robber Barons: A New Look at the Rise of Big Business in America (Herndon, VA: [1987] 1996).

    Google Scholar 

  • Friedman, Daniel and Daniel McNeill. Morals and Markets: The Dangerous Balance (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). 2nd edition.

    Google Scholar 

  • Galambos, Louis. The Public Image of Big Business in America, 1880–1940: A Quantitative Study in Social Change (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975).

    Google Scholar 

  • Garraty, John. The American Nation (New York, NY: HarperCollins, 1991). 7th ed.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gilchrist, D.T. “Albert Fink and the Pooling System.” Business History Review XXIV(1), Spring 1960, 24–49.

    Google Scholar 

  • Godkin, Edwin. “The Vanderbilt Memorial.” The Nation Vol. IX, November 18, 1869, 431–432.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gras, Norman. “A New Study of Rockefeller.” Bulletin of the Business Historical Society 15(4), October 1941, 49–58.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gras, Norman. “Shifts in Public Relations.” Bulletin of the Business Historical Society 19(4), October 1945, 97–148.

    Google Scholar 

  • Green, Constance. “What Has the Business Administrator Contributed to Society?” Bulletin of the Business History Society 17(1), January 1943, 22–26.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hughes, Jonathan. The Vital Few: The Entrepreneur & American Economic Progress (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, [1965] 1986), expanded edition.

    Google Scholar 

  • Josephson, Matthew. The Robber Barons: The Great American Capitalists, 1861–1901 (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publisher, [1934] 2011), September 8, 1883, 281–285.

    Google Scholar 

  • Landes, David. The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor (New York, NY: W.W. Norton, 1998).

    Google Scholar 

  • Martin, Albro. “The Troubled Subject of Railroad Regulation in the Gilded Age—A Reappraisal.” Journal of American History 61(2), September 1974, 339–371.

    Google Scholar 

  • Martin, Albro. “James J. Hill and the First Energy Revolution: A Study in Entrepreneurship, 1865–1878.” Business History Review L(2), Summer 1976, 179–197.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mercer, Lloyd. “Rates of Return for Land-Grant Railroads: The Central Pacific System.” Journal of Economic History 30(3), September 1970, 602–626.

    Google Scholar 

  • Morton, Frederic. The Rothschilds: A Family Portrait (New York, NY: Atheneum, 1962).

    Google Scholar 

  • Nash, Gerald. “The Reformer Reformed: John H. Reagan and Railroad Regulation.” Business History Review XXIX(2), June 1955, 189–196.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nevins, Allan. John D. Rockefeller: The Heroic Age of American Enterprise (New York, NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1940). 2 vols.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sabel, Charles and Jonathan Zeitlin. “Historical Alternatives to Mass Production.” Past & Present. No. 108, August 1985, 133–176.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schumpeter, Joseph. Theory of Economic Development. (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, [1934] 1983).

    Google Scholar 

  • Seabright, Paul. The Company of Strangers: A Natural History of Economic Life (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004).

    Google Scholar 

  • Silk, Leonard. “Economic Scene: I.M.F.’s Goal of Confidence.” New York Times, September 30, 1983, D2.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sombart, Werner. “Capitalism.” Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, edited by E.R.A. Seligman (New York, NY: Macmillan, 1930), III:195–208. 15 vols.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tipple, John. “The Anatomy of Prejudice, Origins of the Robber Baron Legend.” Business History Review XXXIII(4), Winter 1959, 510–522.

    Google Scholar 

  • Webb, Beatrice. My Apprenticeship (New York, NY: Longmans, Green, 1926).

    Google Scholar 

  • Yamamura, Kozo. “Economic Responsiveness in Japanese Industrialization.” Business Enterprise and Economic Change: Essays in Honor of Harold F. Williamson, edited by Louis Cain and Paul Uselding (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1973), 173–197.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zerbe, Richard. “The costs and benefits of early regulation of the railroads.” Bell Journal of Economics 11(1), Spring 1980, 343–350.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics, University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, IA, USA

    David George Surdam

Authors
  1. David George Surdam
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to David George Surdam .

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2020 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Surdam, D.G. (2020). Rise of Industrialization. In: Business Ethics from the 19th Century to Today. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37169-2_4

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37169-2_4

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-37168-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-37169-2

  • eBook Packages: Economics and FinanceEconomics and Finance (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation