DOCSLIB.ORG

The Prospering Fathers

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Prospering Fathers The Prospering Fathers Commentary , July 1999 THERE HAS been a serious flaw in American historical writing that is only now beginning to be corrected. American historians have rightly celebrated the passionate moral purpose of the Pilgrim Fathers, decisive in forming the matrix of the nation's character. They have, with equal justice, canonized the Founding Fathers, that extraordinarily varied and talented group of men who, combining the best of Enlightenment values with the hard-won lessons of the English tradition of empirical statesmanship, gave the new nation a model Constitution and a splendid start toward its high-risk experiment in republican self-government. But a third key group in the country's development--the Prospering Fathers, as I call them--have never really received their due. In the period between the end of the Civil War and the onset of World War I, this collection of entrepreneurial individualists, united only by their colossal energy, native shrewdness, and belief in their country's future, transformed a predominantly agricultural society into an industrial and financial superstate, laying the foundations of the nation's geopolitical supremacy and of what has rightly been called the American Century. Not only have these men failed to be canonized, they have been, to the contrary, demonized, and dismissed collectively as "robber barons." Around their works and days there has gathered a deep encrustation of acidic mythology, advanced during their own time by "crusading"--i.e., unscrupulous--journalists and long accepted as truth by historians who might have been expected to know better. As time marches on, however, it has become harder and harder to maintain this corrosive view. The deeds of the Prospering Fathers are now a century old, and that century, if we exclude the horrific gash of the still-inexplicable Great Depression, has been mostly a saga of wealth-creation and wealth-distribution unique in world history. The huge increment produced by the United States made it possible to fight and win two world wars against autocracy and totalitarianism, to underwrite freedom, democracy, and the rule of law everywhere, to invest in new technologies that are now spreading at stupefying speed and, at the same time, to give the American people, who have more than doubled their numbers--as well as all those around the world who have followed the path the Prospering Fathers trod--an affluence never dreamed-of before. So whom did the barons rob? All the more reason, then, to hail two recent and quite complementary studies: Ron Chernow's Titan: The Lift of John D. Rockefeller(*) and Morgan: American Financier by Jean Strouse.([dagger]) Neither Chernow nor Strouse is a hagiographer. Theirs are true portraits, warts and all; but together they go some way toward redressing the historical balance. WHAT DID the Prospering Fathers have in common? By achieving enormous economies of scale, they turned the luxuries of the rich into the necessities of the poor, and thereby reduced the real price of almost everything. Andrew Carnegie was one exemplar of the type. Using chemists to find out what actually happened inside a steel furnace, he was able to raise production and cut costs so dramatically that steel soon replaced iron as the primary metal. The rapid and benign consequences of this feat were experienced in almost every aspect of life, from farm machinery (and productivity) to construction, making skyscrapers possible and high-quality housing cheap. The closing of the Iron Age (as it were) and the opening of the Steel Age also cut the cost of rails and locomotives. Edward Harriman, another Prospering Father, took advantage of that fact, rationalizing the system and making it not only cheap but safe. Equally huge strides were registered in fuel costs. Henry Clay Frick, Carnegie's protege, played a major role in the steel revolution by cutting coking bills. But, as Ron Chernow shows, it was John D. Rockefeller who pounced on the new fuels provided by crude oil, achieving a temporary monopoly of as much as 80 percent of world production and refining. No industry in history has ever profited so much as oil refining from economies of scale, or done so much for the ordinary consumer. Right at the outset of Rockefeller's empire-building, he was able to reduce by 70 percent the cost of kerosene, the staple of housewives throughout the nation. Even more important in the long run was the competition that cheap oil offered to solid fuel in the generation of electricity. The electrical age began in earnest around 1900, rapidly making California the richest state in the union and in time transforming the Far West into one of the world's most efficient industrial zones. Cheap petroleum contributed still more to the automobile revolution, a revolution introduced by the last of the Prospering Fathers, Henry Ford. Thanks to vertiginous economies of scale, the sturdy, reliable, safely driven, and easily maintained car created by Ford soon became cheap, too. By putting the automobile within the means not only of most farmers but of the workers who produced it, Rockefeller and Ford ended the isolation of the farming families who made up half the nation and set industrial workers on the road to comfort and even affluence. THE METHODS employed by men like Rockefeller to achieve their temporary monopolies were ruthless--and they were resented. As Chernow faithfully reports, Rockefeller was none too gentle in putting inefficient producers out of business. One of his victims was the father of Ida Tarbell, the first "investigative journalist," and she took her revenge by spending most of her life exposing and denouncing the excesses of Standard Oil. In an image that persists, she branded Rockefeller a monster. The hostile journalists soon stirred up the politicians, among them old-money grandees like Theodore Roosevelt, who, taking a particular objection to Edward Harriman, denounced him as a "malefactor." Thus was detonated a populist revolution that fed off a sore spot in the American character, the conflict between bigness and democracy. Loving the advantages of bigness, Americans have also always wanted the voices of the "people" to be heard above its uproar. Rockefeller's quest for a large-scale oil industry genuinely scared a lot of Americans, not all of whom, like Tarbell, were parti pris. In 1879, a grand jury in Pennsylvania indicted Rockefeller for conspiracy and extortion. For 30 years, he became, in strict law, a fugitive from justice, and had to be extremely careful to avoid extradition from the states where he lived, made his money, or enjoyed himself. If he built and sustained an empire, and became the richest man in the world, he did so against a constant campaign of political and legal opposition, much of it bitter and highly personal. I would guess that more legal actions were taken, and (later on) more corrective laws passed, against him than against any other man in history. That, of course, is one reason why his business crimes, real or imaginary, have been brought so thoroughly to light. Chernow goes into them with energy. Suspiciousness of bigness was not confined to "little people." It also loomed large in the demonology of intellectuals, not least in the legal profession. When chain stores were created by the disciples of the Prospering Fathers, pushing smaller and less efficient competitors to the wall while driving down retail costs, progressive legal minds challenged the idea that large-scale enterprises would benefit ordinary families. Their view was given for all time by Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis, who was speaking with both the chain stores and Standard Oil in mind: I have considered and do consider that the proposition that mere bigness cannot be an offense against society is false, because I believe that our society, which rests upon democracy, cannot endure under such conditions. This was not so much an argument, however, as an article of political faith, and one more likely to be held by a well- paid judge than by a working-class housewife on a tight budget. But Brandeis's doctrine did and no doubt still does find favor among lawyers and professors. Rockefeller was the first major victim of the antitrust legislation to which this doctrine gave birth: Standard Oil, in its pristine form, was broken up. Of course, the legal progressives were never able to defeat outright the Prospering Fathers and their disciples and descendants, for another forensic groundwork had been laid down early in the 19th century by the first great Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, John Marshall. His rulings, which made large-scale capitalist enterprise in the U.S. not only possible but profitable, were graven in granite. What the progressives were able to do was to put big business perpetually on its guard, to force it to watch its step, to calculate legal consequences at every stage, and to muster the resources to fight court battles as part of routine operations. Over the decades, all this has proved mightily beneficial to the legal profession; since the costs have naturally been written into retail prices, whether consumers have benefited is another question altogether. A classic instance today of this continuing trench warfare is the Microsoft case. In the last quarter-century, Bill Gates, a latter-day Prospering Father, has built up from nothing the largest company in the world, right at the forefront of technology (as were Carnegie Steel and Ford Motors and Standard Oil in their day) and with a total value equal to the gross national product of a medium-sized country like Turkey. The cost of communicating information is falling steeply and continuously, and there can be no doubt that Gates has had a great deal to do with that fact.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Social-Class-Hidden-Rules-Quiz.Pdf
    Action 2 Hidden Rules Could You Survive in Poverty? Put a check by each item you know how to do. ___ 1. I know which churches and sections of town have the best rummage sales. ___ 2. I know when Walmart, drug stores, and convenience stores throw away over-the-counter medicine with expired dates. ___ 3. I know which pawn shops sell DVDs for $1. ___ 4. In my town in criminal courts, I know which judges are lenient, which ones are crooked, and which ones are fair. ___ 5. I know how to physically fi ght and defend myself physically. ___ 6. I know how to get a gun, even if I have a police record. ___ 7. I know how to keep my clothes from being stolen at the Laundromat. ___ 8. I know what problems to look for in a used car. ___ 9. I/my family use a payday lender. ___ 10. I know how to live without electricity and a phone. ___ 11. I know how to use a knife as scissors. ___ 12. I can entertain a group of friends with my personality and my stories. ___ 13. I know which churches will provide assistance with food or shelter. Students Educate 10 Actions to ___ 14. I know how to move in half a day. ___ 15. I know how to get and use food stamps or an electronic card for benefi ts. ___ 16. I know where the free medical clinics are. ___ 17. I am very good at trading and bartering.
    [Show full text]
  • Who Rules Cincinnati?
    Who Rules Cincinnati? A Study of Cincinnati’s Economic Power Structure And its Impact on Communities and People By Dan La Botz Cincinnati Studies www.CincinnatiStudies.org Published by Cincinnati Studies www.CincinnatiStudies.org Copyright ©2008 by Dan La Botz Table of Contents Summary......................................................................................................... 1 Preface.............................................................................................................4 Introduction.................................................................................................... 7 Part I - Corporate Power in Cincinnati.........................................................15 Part II - Corporate Power in the Media and Politics.....................................44 Part III - Corporate Power, Social Classes, and Communities......................55 Part IV - Cincinnati: One Hundred Years of Corporate Power.....................69 Discussion..................................................................................................... 85 Bibliography.................................................................................................. 91 Acknowledgments.........................................................................................96 About the Author...........................................................................................97 Summary This investigation into Cincinnati’s power structure finds that a handful of national and multinational corporations dominate
    [Show full text]
  • Melissa S. Fisher WALL STREET WOMEN
    Wall Street Women Melissa S. Fisher WALL STREET WOMEN Melissa S. Fisher Duke University Press Durham and London 2012 ∫ 2012 Duke University Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper $ Designed by C. H. Westmoreland Typeset in Arno Pro by Keystone Typesetting, Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging-in- Publication Data appear on the last printed page of this book. For my Bubbe, Rebecca Saidikoff Oshiver, and in the memory of my grandmother Esther Oshiver Fisher and my grandfather Mitchell Salem Fisher CONTENTS acknowledgments ix introduction Wall Street Women 1 1. Beginnings 27 2. Careers, Networks, and Mentors 66 3. Gendered Discourses of Finance 95 4. Women’s Politics and State-Market Feminism 120 5. Life after Wall Street 136 6. Market Feminism, Feminizing Markets, and the Financial Crisis 155 notes 175 bibliography 201 index 217 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS A commitment to gender equality first brought about this book’s journey. My interest in understanding the transformations in women’s experiences in male-dominated professions began when I was a child in the seventies, listening to my grandmother tell me stories about her own experiences as one of the only women at the University of Penn- sylvania Law School in the twenties. I also remember hearing my mother, as I grew up, speaking about women’s rights, as well as visiting my father and grandfather at their law office in midtown Manhattan: there, while still in elementary school, I spoke to the sole female lawyer in the firm about her career. My interests in women and gender studies only grew during my time as an undergraduate at Barnard College.
    [Show full text]
  • Bridges out of Poverty
    Bridges out of Poverty Session 1 of 3 June 16, 2021 Kiersten Baer • Online MarketingCoordinator • Illinois Center for Specialized Professional Support • [email protected] • 309-438-1838 Where is Your Local Area? Title I Job Corps Adult Ed Second Wagner Chance Peyser Which partner do you Youth Voc Rehab best represent? Build Chief Elected Official One stop SCSEP partners CTE Board Member Migrant TANF Farmworker s Business HUD TAA CSBG UI Veterans Melissa Martin • Mmartincommunication.com • [email protected] • 307-214-2702 Agenda Three-Part Series • Session 1 - 6/16/2021, 10 – 11:30 a.m. • Participants will explore the mental models for each social class and how perceptions shape actions. • Session 2 – 6/23/2021, 1 – 2:30 p.m. • Building on the previous session, participants will explore the research centered around poverty in their area, as well as explore the hidden rules that exist in the 3 socioeconomic classes. • Session 3 – 6-30-2021, 10 – 11:30 p.m. • Building on the previous 2 sessions, participants will begin to apply the material through the awareness of language use and differing resources. BRIDGES out of Poverty Copyright 2006. Revised 2017. All rights reserved. aha! Process, Inc. www.ahaprocess.com @ahaprocess 7 Copyright 2006. Revised 2017. All rights reserved. aha! Process, Inc. www.ahaprocess.com @ahaprocess 8 PHILANTHROPY, POLICY, QUALITY OF LIFE Copyright 2006. Revised 2017. All rights reserved. aha! Process, Inc. www.ahaprocess.com @ahaprocess 9 Could you Survive? Poverty? Middle Class? Wealth? Copyright 2006. Revised 2017. All rights reserved. aha! Process, Inc. www.ahaprocess.com @ahaprocess 10 KEY POINT Generational and situational poverty are different.
    [Show full text]
  • Games & Disguise: the Businessman in 19Th & 20Th Century Literature
    John Carroll University Carroll Collected Senior Honors Projects Theses, Essays, and Senior Honors Projects Spring 2017 Games & Disguise: The uB sinessman in 19th & 20th Century Literature Megan Koperna John Carroll University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://collected.jcu.edu/honorspapers Part of the Literature in English, British Isles Commons, and the Literature in English, North America Commons Recommended Citation Koperna, Megan, "Games & Disguise: The usineB ssman in 19th & 20th Century Literature" (2017). Senior Honors Projects. 103. http://collected.jcu.edu/honorspapers/103 This Honors Paper/Project is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses, Essays, and Senior Honors Projects at Carroll Collected. It has been accepted for inclusion in Senior Honors Projects by an authorized administrator of Carroll Collected. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Koperna 1 Megan Koperna Dr. LaGuardia Senior Honors Project 25 April 2017 Games & Disguise: The Businessman in 19th & 20th Century Literature Recognizable through his unrelenting lust for power, status, and perhaps most importantly, money, the character of the businessman in U.S. and British writers in 19th and 20th century literature expresses the attitudes of these writers toward capitalism, identity, and relation to self and the world. The businessman first emerges simply as an evil, corrupting force; but over time, he becomes increasingly complex. Writers over the last two hundred years show that while games and trickery initially help businessmen advance themselves, the characters ultimately fail because of their selfishness. Concerns about business portrayed by the writers reflect concerns more widely held today, in a world with an increasing regard for ethics in business.
    [Show full text]
  • Is There a Global Super‐Bourgeoisie?
    Received: 11 January 2021 Revised: 24 March 2021 Accepted: 24 March 2021 DOI: 10.1111/soc4.12883 ARTICLE - - Is there a global super‐bourgeoisie? Bruno Cousin1 | Sébastien Chauvin2 1Centre for European Studies and Comparative Politics (CEE), Sciences Po, Abstract Paris, France In recent decades, accelerating processes of globalization 2Institute of Social Sciences (ISS), University and an increase in economic inequality in most of the of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland world's countries have raised the question of the emer- Correspondence gence of a new bourgeoisie integrated at the global level, Bruno Cousin, Sciences Po‐CEE, 27 rue Saint‐ Guillaume, 75337 Paris Cedex 07, France. sometimes described as a global super‐bourgeoisie. This Email: [email protected] group would be distinguished by its unequaled level of wealth and global interconnectedness, its transnational ubiquity and concentration in the planet's major global cities, its specific culture, consumption habits, sites of so- ciability and shared references, and even by class con- sciousness and capacity to act collectively. This article successively discusses how the social sciences have exam- ined these various dimensions of the question and begun to provide systematic empirical answers. KEYWORDS bourgeoisie, class, economic elites, global elite, inequality, super‐ rich, transnationalism 1 | INTRODUCTION In the past decades, accelerating processes of globalization and an increase in economic inequality in most of the world's countries have raised the question of the possible emergence of a new bourgeoisie now integrated at the global level (Dahrendorf, 2000) or, as some have called it, of a global “super‐bourgeoisie” (Cousin & Chauvin, 2015; Duclos 2002; Wagner 2017).
    [Show full text]
  • Why Do Shareholders Value Marriage? Pramuan Bunkanwanicha ESCP
    DBJ Discussion Paper Series, No.1001 Why Do Shareholders Value Marriage? Pramuan Bunkanwanicha ESCP Europe Joseph P.H. Fan The Chinese University of Hong Kong Yupana Wiwattanakantang Hitotsubashi University June 2010 ESCP Europe, 79 avenue de la République 75011 Paris, France. Tel: +33 1 49 23 58 03; Fax: +33 1 49 23 20 80; E-mail: [email protected] The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Faculty of Business Administration, Shatin, N.T., Hong Kong. Tel: +852 26097839; Fax: +852 26035114; E-mail: [email protected] Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University 2-1 Naka, Kunitachi, Tokyo 186-8603 Japan. Tel: +81 42 580 8374; Fax: +81 42 580 8333; E-mail: [email protected] We thank Franklin Allen, Sridhar Arcot, Morten Bennedsen, Sea-Jin Chang, Andrew Ellul, Cesare Fracassi, Gopalan Radhakrishnan, Denis Gromb, Jonathan Karpoff, Tarun Khanna, Meziane Lasfer, Jeffrey Pontiff, Ronald Masulis, Randall Morck, Harold Mulherin, Andreas Savva, Jordan Siegel, Sheridan Titman, Yishay Yafeh, David Yermack, and seminar participants at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Dauphine University, Harvard Business School, Université de Bourgogne, the 2007 LBS/ECGI/ESRC conference, the 2nd EMG conference, the 2008 FIRS conference, the 2008 EFA meeting, the 2009 WFA meeting, for helpful comments. Discussion Papers are a series of preliminary materials in their draft form. No quotations, reproductions or circulations should be made without the written consent of the authors in order to protect the tentative characters of these papers. Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in these papers are those of the authors and do not reflect the views of the Institute.
    [Show full text]
  • Using the Hidden Rules of Class to Create Sustainable Communities
    Using the Hidden Rules of Class to Create Sustainable Communities Philip E. DeVol aha! Process, Inc. INTRODUCTION The way children experience life is determined by the families and communities in which they are raised; it falls to families and communities to create a way of life that is healthy, prosperous, and sustainable. In her seminal 1996 work A Framework for Understanding Poverty (third revised edition, 2003), Dr. Ruby K. Payne introduces the concept of hidden rules of economic class—and in future works she addresses sustainability, the next major challenge all communities must face. With Payne’s ideas as a springboard, this paper seeks to contribute to the dialogue. Economic and social trends going back to the 1970s show a decline in the quality of life in the United States. The middle class is shrinking (Lind 2004, pp. 120-128), social connectedness is declining in all social classes (Putnam 2000, pp. 9, 63), some rural areas are losing population and the sense of community they once had (Lind 2003, pp. 86-88), some urban areas are collapsing as middle-class families move to the suburbs looking for good schools (Warren 2003, p. 8), and working a second job is required to make ends meet (Miringoff 2000, p. 9). For low- wage workers, vulnerability is becoming a concrete experience; for people in generational poverty, vulnerability has always been a concrete experience. This paper addresses the impact of generational poverty on families and communities, why we must respond, and how to use an understanding of economic diversity to build sustainable communities. The sequence includes: • Creating a mental model of poverty and middle class.
    [Show full text]
  • Interim Report on the Connections Between Colonialism and Properties Now in the Care of the National Trust, Including Links with Historic Slavery
    Interim Report on the Connections between Colonialism and Properties now in the Care of the National Trust, Including Links with Historic Slavery EDITORS Dr Sally-Anne Huxtable Head Curator, National Trust Professor Corinne Fowler University of Leicester Dr Christo Kefalas World Cultures Curator, National Trust Emma Slocombe Textile Curator, National Trust © National Trust, September 2020 Published by the National Trust, Heelis, Kemble Drive, Swindon, Wiltshire SN2 2NA Authorship and Acknowledgements REPORT EDITORS Dr Sally-Anne Huxtable, Head Curator, National Trust Professor Corinne Fowler, University of Leicester Dr Christo Kefalas, World Cultures Curator, National Trust Emma Slocombe, Textile Curator, National Trust AUTHORS Frances Bailey, Dr Rachel Conroy, Sophie Chessum, Professor Corinne Fowler, Jane Gallagher, Dr Rupert Goulding, Dr Liz Green, Dr Sally-Anne Huxtable, Dr Christo Kefalas, Lucy Porten and Emma Slocombe. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The Editors would like to thank everyone who has contributed to this interim report. We wish to extend our gratitude to Professor Corinne Fowler of the University of Leicester. As Global Connections Fellow at the National Trust (September 2019 to June 2020), Corinne was commissioned to write an earlier version of the gazetteer section of this report, and for the first time brought together and edited this wide-ranging research from a number of authors and scholars on the histories of slavery and colonialism at National Trust places. We are also grateful for the contributions of the researchers and schoolchildren involved in the Colonial Countryside project that Corinne led at a number of our places. Particular thanks go to Christopher Tinker, Publisher (Curatorial Content) and Katie Knowles, Assistant Curator (Collections), for their excellent work bringing the report together.
    [Show full text]
  • The Gilded Age 2/13/12 1:18 PM Page Iii
    DM - The Gilded Age 2/13/12 1:18 PM Page iii Defining Moments the Gilded Age Diane Telgen 155 W. Congress, Suite 200 Detroit, MI 48226 DM - The Gilded Age 2/13/12 1:18 PM Page v Table of Contents Preface . .ix How to Use This Book . .xiii Research Topics for Defining Moments: The Gilded Age . .xv NARRATIVE OVERVIEW Prologue . 3 Chapter One: America’s Postwar Expansion . 9 Chapter Two: The Rise of the Robber Barons . 23 Chapter Three: Captains of Industry . 39 Chapter Four: Gilded Age Politics, Reformers, and Regulators . 55 Chapter Five: The Rise of Labor . 71 Chapter Six: The 1890s: A Decade of Upheaval . 89 Chapter Seven: Legacy of the Gilded Age . 105 BIOGRAPHIES William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925) . 125 Populist Leader and Three-time Democratic Candidate for President Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919) . 129 Steel Magnate and Philanthropist Grover Cleveland (1837-1908) . 133 Democratic President of the United States v DM - The Gilded Age 2/13/12 1:18 PM Page vi Defining Moments: The Gilded Age Eugene V. Debs (1855-1926) . 137 Founder of the American Railway Union and the Socialist Party of America Samuel Gompers (1850-1924) . 141 Founder and President of the American Federation of Labor Jay Gould (1836-1892) . 144 Gilded Age Financier and Railroad Owner Mary Elizabeth Lease (1853-1933) . 147 Reformist Speaker and Politician J. P. Morgan (1837-1913) . 150 Leading Banker and Financier of the Gilded Age Terence V. Powderly (1849-1924) . 153 Leader of the Knights of Labor John D. Rockefeller (1839-1937) . 156 Founder of the Standard Oil Company PRIMARY SOURCES Mark Twain Describes the Get-Rich-Quick Mining Culture .
    [Show full text]
  • Matthew Josephson, Robber Barons
    Matthew Josephson, Robber Barons Robber Barons THE Robber Barons Foreword 1962 Foreword THE GREAT AMERICAN CAPITALISTS ● National Scene 1861-1901 ● Young Man Dream by ● Empire Builders ● Winning West Matthew Josephson ● Captains Industry There are never wanting some persons ● Fight for Erie of violent and undertaking natures, ● Grandeurs who, so they may have power and Empire business, will take it at any cost. ● Rising from Ruins FRANCIS BACON ● Mephistopheles ● Caesar Borgia HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY ● Giants of NEW YORK, 1934 Northwest ● Certain Industrialists ● Morgan and Railways ● Robber Barons ● Again Robber Barons ● Great Trusts ● Empire of Morgan ● Battle of Giants http://yamaguchy.netfirms.com/josephson/josephson_index.html5.4.2006 10:22:57 Matthew Josephson, The Robber Barons FOREWORD THIS book attempts the history of a small class of men who arose at the time of our Civil War and suddenly swept into power. The members of this new ruling class were generally, and quite aptly, called “barons,” “kings,” “empire-builders,” or even “emperors.” They were aggressive men, as were the first feudal barons ; sometimes they were lawless ; in important crises, nearly all of them tended to act without those established moral principles which fixed more or less the conduct of the common people of the community. At the same time, it has been noted, many of them showed volcanic energy and qualities of courage which, under another economic clime, might have fitted them for immensely useful social constructions, and rendered them glorious rather than hateful to their people. These men were robber barons as were their medieval counterparts, the dominating figures of an aggressive economic age.
    [Show full text]
  • Milwaukee Magazine May 1996
    MILWAUKEE MAGAZINE MAY 1996 Old Money Heirs from Milwaukee's "old families" reveal the unspoken legacy of inherited wealth More than a hundred years and three generations have passed since the reign of Milwaukee's "old families" began–families that fueled the manufacturing, banking, and social life of the city from the 1880s until the 1970s. There were the Vogels and Galluns in tanning; Kieckhefers and Harnischfegers in machine-making; Brumders in publishing; Pritzlaffs in hardware; Kastens in banking; Pabsts and Uihleins in brewing. Together they made up a ruling pantheon and, like the ruling families of Europe, they were knit together by bonds of marriage, tradition, schooling and blood. Many made an extraordinary journey–from first-generation "new money" Germans (looked down on by the early New England settlers of Yankee Hill) to the third-generation equivalent of a local aristocracy. Up through the baby boom era, their offspring were raised when the pantheon was still powerful, and their lives were molded by that distinctive world. It's natural to assume that financial security has given the heirs to old money easy lives and contentment. After all, most people spend a lifetime trying to attain what they possessed at birth. Their double legacy of wealth and social prominence suggests the realization of the American Dream. But for some, the reality has not been that simple. Inherited wealth can be an obstacle to personal growth and a traveling companion of guilt, escapism and depression, says local therapist and author Jessie O'Neill, an outspoken commentator on the psychological legacy of old money.
    [Show full text]