With these businesses exploding it created many new jobs and allowed for those who co entitled these industries to become some of the richest men the world has ever seen. Though h the capitalists who shaped post civil war America may at first come off as Captains of Indus ray, if you look closer they did not do as much as they could have to help the less fortunate a s well as putting their workers both young and old in dangerous working conditions showing t heir true identity as Robber Barons.
The capitalists of this time were some of the richest the world has ever seen h forever he did not do nearly as much as they could have to help those who weren’t a s fortunate even though most of them had started very poor themselves. Through the political cartoon in document D we see the ragged and skinny poor laying their bags of money at the feet of the large, armed, and fancily dressed Robber Barons.
The poor already have very little, as shown by their clothing, yet they are forced by legislation, represented by the swords , to continue to give whatever they have while those who have more money than they can SP end while they stand over them and watch them struggle. This cartoon is compared to one o f feudal serfdom where the serfs gave most of what they had to the lords leaving the serfs to SST rave while the lords sat back and collected their goods. This comparison leads us to see the datedness in the time as serfdom ended long before U.
S capitalism was born, yet it would appear to be coming back through the control over society that the Robber Barons have. A another time we see these Robber Barons using their money all for themselves is in document F titled, Vanderbilt “Summer Cottage” showing a massive mansion in Newport Rhode I island. This mansion is enormous and is only used as as a house for a quarter of the year. Vanderbilt spent enormous amounts of money on this mansion that he would barite Ely e even use instead of using it to raise the pay of his workers or just share with the less fortunate.
With all the money he spend on his own pleasure he could have impacted hundreds of live sees of those who work for him who struggle every day to allow for him to achieve his fortune. T his image of a summer cottage shows how Vanderbilt and the Capitalists of this time were n to Captains of industry but infant Robber Barons. In document H Clement Studebaker gives a testimony to the Chicago Conference on Trusts stating, “NO true monopoly is possible in HTH s country except that enjoyed by a virtue of a patent granted by the United States”.
This quote suggests that these Robber Barons have partially achieved their fortune through luck a s nobody had gotten to the patent before them allowing for them to create a monopoly. The e Capitalists if the time should have recognized their luck and allowed for other businesses to SST art up as theirs had and have a fighting chance instead of destroying the opposition in the fig t towards a monopoly. Many of them overtook any competition that appeared to guaranty e complete control of their industry not allowing for anybody else to gain wealth or even have a chance.
The Capitalists of this time thrived off of the struggle of the poor and depend deed on them yet they failed to give back to them and even took more money away from them clearly showing his the capitalists of the time were Robber Barons. Though the capitalists of the time did create many jobs for those who were eve ray poor they did not care about the conditions that these people had to work in and o often put their ivies at risk to obtain more profit. In documents and document B we are able to see that they put children to work often times in dangerous conditions.
In document B C. D. Warner tells us that, “Every man, woman, and child was actively employed, and in most cases there were fewer idlers than in many Northern towns”. Though one could view this as be inefficacy that everybody is working Warner fails to tell about the conditions that these peep Ii let alone children are put into to make very little money. We are able to see these condo actions through the image in document J which depicts a group of young boys dirtied up from irking in a coal mine. Coal mines were extremely dangerous and hazardous during this it me.
Each day the capitalists sent these young men into the coal mines they risked them get ting crushed by a mine shaft collapsing as well as endangering them by allowing them to inhale e all of the dust and debris that is in the air in the mine shafts. We are also able to see these b sys carrying lunch boxes which suggests that they work long hours and wearing tattered a ND dirty clothing suggesting that they are paid very little. These children are put into some oft he most ungenerous working conditions of the time only to be paid very little and have most of their earnings go to the Robber Barons of the time.
We are able to hear about the dangerous working through E. Lifesaver’s statement in document G. He compares the w irking conditions in England to those in America and tells us that, “The manufacturer s there were not so desirous as they are here of working their men like horses or slaves”. Here Leverages compares the work of the men as work that one may have a horse do. These men were getting very little pay and were put in extremely hazardous conditions and the only thing that truly separates their jobs from being considered slavery was their ability to q tit which they could not do as they needed to feed their family.
To work these men like hors sees or slaves showed the inhumanity of the Capitalists and made them Robber Barons as t hey risked the lives of the poor to achieve their wealth. These Robber Barons had no regard for the working conditions of their employees and often risked the lives of men, women, and children in their fight to become more wealthy. Though the Capitalists of 18751900 may on the outside seem like Captains of Industry, with a deeper look into their business they are more easily describe d as Robber Barons.
