The Industrial Age
by Megan Armas
1. John D. Rockefeller
1.1. Founded the standard oil company and became one of the wealthiest men in the world and a major philanthropist; Rockefeller controlled most of the nation's oil refineries by eliminating his competition
1.2. He created a monopoly but it was the Sherman Anti-Trust Act was passed to limit his power and ban monopolies
2. J.P. Morgan
2.1. One of the most powerful bankers during his time; followed in his fathers footsteps to then finance railroads and helped organize U.S. Steel, General Electric and other major corporations; He also helped stabilize markets during the panic of 1907 as well as some other economic crisises
3. Henry Ford
3.1. 1903, he established the Ford Motor Company and five years later the first Model T was introduced
3.2. He inntroduced mass production methods like the world’s first moving assembly line for cars
4. Cornelius Vanderbilt
4.1. He was a self-made multi-millionaire who became one of the wealthiest men in the 19th century
4.2. Vanderbilt originally had a successful steamboat business but decided to put millions into merging local railroads into the New York Central Railroad (1867), he profited greatly from the railroad business and made it more efficient.
4.2.1. Railroads not only promoted settlement on the Great Plains, but they linked the West with the East to create one great national market.