Pros And Cons: The Robber Barons Of Industrial America

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Usually America’s antebellum capitalists are accused of being the “robber barons” of industrial America. This misapprehension was made because these men took advantage of the naïve and growing economy and reaped the benefits of it without thinking about how it affected the people. True, the majority of America was poor in comparison to the few members of the wealthy, but the philanthropist efforts and contributions of these men cannot be denied. These capitalists have brought America into the industrialization era where everyone is manufacturing or building something (Document B). They were generous enough to give away their own money trying to help their people and country (Document C). Since, they created many job opportunities, built industries…show more content…
Thousands if not millions of Americans found work thanks to Carnegie’s US Steel, Rockefeller’s Standard Oil, or working on the railroads owned by Cornelius Vanderbilt. These jobs brought rural Americans off of their farms and immigrants onto ships to come in search of an opportunity to make something of themselves. However, many critics complained that these jobs did not pay very well. This reminded some commentators of the medieval system of lords and serfs, as shown in “The Robber Barons of Today” (Document D). While it was true that jobs were sometimes on the end of low labor that paid poorly, the fact that people still clustered from faraway places to work at those jobs shows that they were better than what the people initially had. Even with the low wages urbanization didn’t stop and Immigration didn’t stop. The United States had to enact restrictive laws, such as the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, to keep people out because they still wanted to come here so badly and take the…show more content…
Henry George was not looking at the overall outcome but of the individual inequality of poor people. Also, he had a problem with these capitalists since he had a problem with capitalism as a whole. Relatedly, James Weaver’s Call to Action, in which he condemned the immoral actions of trusts (Document E). James Weaver gave this speech as a Populist Presidential candidate in 1892. The Populists Party was committed to being very socialist. Even though these capitalists utilized trusts and methods such as horizontal and vertical integration, it wasn’t a huge deal because if these men did not create such methods to harness the industry, there wouldn’t have been any other alternative for America as a whole to

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