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View Full Version : The Men Who Built America on the History Channel



Scott Shepherd
10-21-2012, 10:40 AM
I'm no history buff by any means, but I've seen the commercials for a month now and wasn't that interested in this series. However, there was nothing on tv last night and I started watching it. WOW! Talk about a history lesson. That was fascinating.

First one in the series and it was about Vanderbilt and Rockefeller with a hint of Carnegie coming in at the end.

Man, those guys were ruthless. It was amazing to me how Rockefeller was about to go under and basically bluffed his way into it all, making him the richest man in the USA at the time. It was really interesting to see all their business practices and see how they are all illegal today, because of them and what they did.

I thought some of the moves that they made were brilliant. Like a giant game of poker.

Very interesting. I can't wait for the next one now, all about the Steel Industry.

I also didn't realize that the "games" that these titans were playing were destroying cities, lives, and families, like they were. To prove a point, they'd shut down entire plants that cities depended on. Brutal, brutal guys.

Anyone else watching it?

Mel Fulks
10-21-2012, 10:52 AM
How else can one get enough money to be a great humanitarian ?

Shawn Pixley
10-21-2012, 10:55 AM
I watched it as well. Ruthless brutal times. Pretty tough on the workers. The Depression of 1873 was a major factor in westward expansion and immigration in the US.

Brian Elfert
10-21-2012, 11:24 AM
I watched it and am looking forward to the next episode. I'm wondering if Rockefeller intentionally used verbal contracts with the intent he could easily break them later if he wanted?

I liked the scene at the refinery when they talked about the volatile byproducts from refining kerosene. I suspect one of the byproducts was gasoline and at the time nobody realized just how important refining gasoline would become.

Scott Shepherd
10-21-2012, 11:52 AM
I wonder how it all would have been different if Rockefeller was on that train that he missed.

I've heard all those names many times over my lifetime, but I've actually never known anything about those men or even what they did. I didn't realize that oil was Rockefeller's claim to fame, nor did I know Vanderbilt was all about railroads. Now I know :)

Brian Elfert
10-21-2012, 1:41 PM
I didn't know what Vanderbilt had done, but I knew about Rockefeller and Standard Oil. The US government broke up Standard Oil in the first ever antitrust case for being a monopoly. I assume that is coming in the next episode.

John McClanahan
10-21-2012, 2:50 PM
I like the history lesson, but I get tired of the constant repetition. They turn a 1 hour show into 2 hours. I feel like everyone must have a very short attention span nowadays.

John

Scott Shepherd
10-21-2012, 6:16 PM
I like the history lesson, but I get tired of the constant repetition. They turn a 1 hour show into 2 hours. I feel like everyone must have a very short attention span nowadays.

John

So true! I understand the recap after a commercial, of what just happened, but their recaps went back 3-4 segments which was really odd.

Brian Elfert
10-21-2012, 7:12 PM
I even hate the quick recaps after commercials, but I watch everything on a DVR so I don't have four minutes of commercials to forget what just happened.

Mike Null
10-25-2012, 12:16 PM
I watch when I can and enjoy them very much. There isn't much question that these great Americans were criminals not altogether different from today's banking, pharmaceutical and other industries.

I'm from Dayton, Ohio where early in the 20th century John Patterson was one of those titans of industry. He founded the National Cash Register Co. It was his practice to threaten and even burn his competitors out of business. He became one of those great philanthropists but under duress.

David G Baker
10-25-2012, 1:55 PM
The same thing is still going on in similar ways, they are better at making it acceptable to the general public because it is sugar coated.

Tom Fischer
10-25-2012, 2:22 PM
Haven't seen this one, wait for it on Netflix.
I like all this old stuff.
Been to Kikuit & Biltmore.
Thinking that that the media is way too hard on these dead guys.
Perfect fertile ground for government bureaucrats to expand and put more controls on everyone.

U.S. Justice beat the cr@p out of Standard Oil. Some of the jobs are still here (yahoo bus. says Exxon has 82K employees after merge with Mobil)
Rockefeller also owned all the Saudi oil fields (Aramco), owned 90% of the world oil reserves, until the Saudis saw what a genius the guy was, demanded that he just give it back to the Saudis. Truman backed down and let them nationalize the oil fields.

Rockefeller got everybody off the whale oil craze. So he was the father of "Save-the-Whales". But never heard anybody give him credit for that.

First empire was kerosine, then came gasoline.
Works for me, don't like riding horseback, esp in the rain.
I heat the house with 50% coal 45% wood 5% electric.
But a lot of the country uses heating oil (diesel) - Rockefeller products. Sure better than burning cow chips.

Rockefeller had the vision, no one else did, accomplished it with horizontal integration - from exploration to drilling to shipping to refining to gas station, he would provide the capital and do it all.
A total solutions guy.
Seems the country could use a few other JD Rockefellers right now.

Hope this isn't considered a "HOT" post, just seems the other side of this story (the robber baron narrative) is kind old and worn out.

John Pratt
10-25-2012, 2:34 PM
Great series, but I see it differnt than those that see it for how ruthless these capitalists operated their business. What I really took away was the entrepreneurial vision that these men had for the time and market place they were in. Most were men that came from nothing, but through drive and determination made vast fortunes seeing what the "next" thing was. I look forward to the episode on Henry Ford.

Scott Shepherd
10-25-2012, 3:35 PM
I don't think anyone on this thread is doubting their visions and their contributions. I think you have to look at men that single handedly put the economy into a depression just to prove a point as people that weren't that great as human beings. It's one thing to put the economy into a depression because of outside circumstances, but these guys did it because they wanted to hurt someone else, someone worth millions and millions at the time. The people that suffered weren't the millionaires, it was the poor working people that suffered.

Talk to the people at the Johnstown Flood about it. Oh that's right, it wiped out the entire town, killing 1000's of people.

Those people CHOSE those actions, so while I applaud their visions and their drives and the companies they ran, I don't applaud the "win at all cost" attitude so many of them had that did SEVERE damage to the US economy and it's people, all just to prove points to people. That's pretty unforgivable to me.

Let's talk about Carnegie sending in Pinkerton with guns, killing 7 people, just to prove his point. I'm not sure how you can look at any of those people and say they were great humanitarians during those days. They might have later became that, but certainly not during the part where they were building those businesses.

Just my opinion.

Tom Fischer
10-25-2012, 3:54 PM
Yes, Scott, good point about failed projects which cost lives.
But it's not really a fair assessment to imply that human disasters are the province of small or large business.
Or that capitalists have a monopoly on human disasters.
To be quite fair, these are just screw-ups by people who deal in large magnitudes.
There were no building codes back then, everybody was on their own.
Trains crashed head on all the time, just because there was no standard time, no time zones.
Is there someone we can blame for that?

When it comes to large magnitudes, I also think it is fair to recognize that the biggest human disasters of all time were in the full province of public service folks, the folks here to serve and protect us.
I am not accusing governments of causing wars, I am just saying that they are human and mistakes are made. In the largest wars, the gross miscalculations are wholesale and obvious.
The Treaty of Versailles was really a document that said "OK, now you are really going to pay for that"
Designed by men, agreed to by men.
So, 20 years later we would have The War to End All Wars, Part II
How many casualties? More than 50 Million?
Treaty of Versailles was not fueled by greed, (as your Johnstown example above)
But it was fueled by some other human vice, maybe something worse than greed.

Ken Fitzgerald
10-25-2012, 4:01 PM
At this point, I will remind everyone......political discussions are not allowed at SMC as it violates the Terms Of Service.

Scott Shepherd
10-25-2012, 5:45 PM
Yes, Scott, good point about failed projects which cost lives.
But it's not really a fair assessment to imply that human disasters are the province of small or large business.
Or that capitalists have a monopoly on human disasters.
To be quite fair, these are just screw-ups by people who deal in large magnitudes.

Tom, keep on mind, the dam failed at Johnstown because it was reduced in size because the "CEO" of Carnegie wanted his buggy to be able to ride across it, not because of any failure to be built correctly.

That action is what led to the dam failing, which cost over 2,000 lives. That's the actions I'm talking about.

I understand all the buying our your competitors when they are down bit, but the arrogance some of them had is off the charts.

Brian Elfert
10-25-2012, 7:11 PM
I thought the show said the Southfork dam was already in bad shape before it was lowered to allow for a wider road?

I knew a little bit about Carnegie before the show, but I had never heard of the second guy who ran his company for quite a while apparently. I didn't think the second installment was quite as good as the first.

Scott Shepherd
10-26-2012, 7:39 AM
I thought the show said the Southfork dam was already in bad shape before it was lowered to allow for a wider road?

To me, that's what makes it even worse. So everyone knew it was a problem and you removed dirt from it so your buggy would fit across it just because you wanted to "ride" across it in your buggy? No excuse for that and he should have been held accountable for it, in my opinion.

Phil Thien
10-26-2012, 9:37 AM
To me, that's what makes it even worse. So everyone knew it was a problem and you removed dirt from it so your buggy would fit across it just because you wanted to "ride" across it in your buggy? No excuse for that and he should have been held accountable for it, in my opinion.

I'm not exactly a history buff, but I only read non-fiction.

I've enjoyed the episodes, but there are a couple of problems.

First, on the dam failure, I'm not sure the reasons for cutting down the damn were accurate. I believe it was cut down to widen it enough for two-way traffic. Any single carriage would have certainly been able to drive across the damn, even before it was cut down.

Also, I think any rivalry between Carnegie and Rockefeller is way overstated.

There are other issues, but it seems to me that they are turning it into a sort of sensationalistic drama akin to one of today's reality series.

Still entertaining, but I wouldn't rely on it for my facts.

Mac McQuinn
10-26-2012, 11:39 AM
Mike,
I'm also from Dayton, my folks met while working at NCR back in the very early 1950's. Wright Patterson AFB has a interesting history and association with the Patterson family.
From Aliens to the Wright Brothers, Dayton has a very colorful past, Hasty Tasty and ParkMoor Chicken included!
Mac




I watch when I can and enjoy them very much. There isn't much question that these great Americans were criminals not altogether different from today's banking, pharmaceutical and other industries.

I'm from Dayton, Ohio where early in the 20th century John Patterson was one of those titans of industry. He founded the National Cash Register Co. It was his practice to threaten and even burn his competitors out of business. He became one of those great philanthropists but under duress.