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Explanation:

Robber baron, pejorative term for one of the powerful 19th-century American industrialists and financiers who made fortunes by monopolizing huge industries through the formation of trusts, engaging in unethical business practices, exploiting workers, and paying little heed to their customers or competition. Alternatively, those who credit the explosive growth of American capitalism during this period to the indefatigable pursuit of success and material wealth are likely to celebrate these entrepreneurial tycoons as “captains of industry.” Among the sectors in which they compiled their great wealth were the oil, steel, liquor, cotton, textile, and tobacco industries, railroads, and banks.

It has been argued that these capitalist pioneers were the “antecedents” of the organized crime that emerged in the United States during the Prohibition era (1920–33). The robber barons transformed the wealth of the American frontier into vast financial empires, amassing their fortunes by monopolizing essential industries. In turn, these monopolies were built upon the liberal use of tactics that are today the hallmark of organized crime: intimidation, violence, corruption, conspiracies, and fraud.

John Jacob Astor

Among the earliest of the robber barons was John Jacob Astor, a fur magnate who amassed his fortune through the monopoly held by his American Fur Company over the trade in the central and western United States during the first 30 years of the 19th century. This monopoly was achieved in part by crushing rivals and systematically cheating Native Americans of fur pelts. When his competitors complained to the government, Astor’s agents resorted to violence. With his riches, Astor routinely paid off politicians to protect his business interests. At the time of his death, Astor was considered the wealthiest person in the country.

John Jacob Astor

John Jacob Astor

John Jacob Astor, engraving after a painting by Alonzo Chappel.

Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

James Fisk

James Fisk, one Wall Street’s first great financiers, accumulated much of his fortune by fraudulent stock market practices. Fisk took much of the considerable money he made from smuggling Southern cotton to Northern mills during the American Civil War and invested it in Confederate bonds. He then swindled European investors by selling short when the defeat of the Confederate army was imminent but before Europe learned that the Confederate currency had collapsed.

caricature of James Fisk

caricature of James Fisk

A caricature of James Fisk, c. 1860s.

Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

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