What is Cornelius Vanderbilt known for?
Cornelius Vanderbilt. Written By: Cornelius Vanderbilt, byname Commodore Vanderbilt, (born May 27, 1794, Port Richmond, Staten Island, New York, U.S.—died January 4, 1877, New York, New York), American shipping and railroad magnate who acquired a personal fortune of more than $100 million.
What happened to Cornelius Vanderbilt in 1833?
On November 8, 1833, Vanderbilt was nearly killed in the Hightstown rail accident on the Camden and Amboy Railroad in New Jersey. Also on the train was former president John Quincy Adams. In 1834, Vanderbilt competed on the Hudson River against the Hudson River Steamboat Association, a steamboat monopoly between New York City and Albany.
How did Cornelius Vanderbilt become so rich?
Cornelius Vanderbilt. Cornelius Vanderbilt (May 27, 1794 – January 4, 1877) was an American business magnate and philanthropist who built his wealth in railroads and shipping. Born poor and having only a mediocre education, Vanderbilt worked his way into leadership positions in the inland water trade and invested in the rapidly growing railroad...
What railroads did Cornelius Vanderbilt own?
At age 70, Vanderbilt turned his attention more closely to railroads, acquiring the New York & Harlem and Hudson Line (which ran along the Erie Canal), and then going after the New York Central Railroad.
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What business did Cornelius Vanderbilt own?
By the 1850s he had turned his attention to railroads, buying up so much stock in the New York and Harlem Railroad that by 1863 he owned the line. He later acquired the Hudson River Railroad and the New York Central Railroad and consolidated them in 1869.
How did Cornelius Vanderbilt run his business?
Vanderbilt invested his profits in steamboats, he lent his money to other businessmen, he bought real estate, and he purchased stock in private corporations. He personally invested millions in building Grand Central Station, one of the largest train depots in the world.
What technique did Cornelius Vanderbilt use?
Vanderbilt used a technique called a/an_________________________________________________________________________, where he rapidly bought a large amount of another company's stock.
How did Vanderbilt monopolize his industry?
In 1834, Vanderbilt competed on the Hudson River against the Hudson River Steamboat Association, a steamboat monopoly between New York City and Albany. Using the name "The People's Line", he used the populist language associated with Democratic president Andrew Jackson to get popular support for his business.
How did Vanderbilt monopolize the railroad industry?
He was infamously involved in the Erie Railroad War of 1868, when he battled Wall Street traders Jim Fisk and Jay Gould for financial control of the Erie Railroad. The Erie was controlled by Daniel Drew, who conspired with Vanderbilt to buy up the majority of shares in the railroad.
How did the Vanderbilts lose their fortune?
By the time Cornelius "Commodore" Vanderbilt's grandchildren began inheriting the family's money, the Vanderbilts' economic dominance was declining. By the 1930s, the shipping industry was losing ground to other modes of transportation like cars, barges, and buses.
Why are the Vanderbilts so rich?
Commodore Vanderbilt started the family empire with a $100 loan from his mother. He used it to buy a boat which ferried freight and passengers between Manhattan and Staten Island. At 19, he married his first cousin and had 13 children with her.
How did George Vanderbilt make his money?
George Washington Vanderbilt II (November 14, 1862 – March 6, 1914) was an art collector and member of the prominent Vanderbilt family, which amassed a huge fortune through steamboats, railroads, and various business enterprises.
How did Cornelius Vanderbilt donate his money quizlet?
In Vanderbilt's last years, who and what did he give his estate and money to, leaving his legacy? Vanderbilt gave the majority of his estate to his favorite child William and moderate sums to his 9 other children. He gave money to build Grand Central, He also founded Vanderbilt University.
What did Cornelius Vanderbilt do?
As a boy, the younger Vanderbilt worked with his father on the water and attended school briefly. When Vanderbilt was a teen he transported cargo around the New York harbor in his own periauger. Eventually, he acquired a fleet of small boats and learned about ship design.
What did Vanderbilt do as a boy?
As a boy, he worked with his father, who operated a boat that ferried cargo between Staten Island, New York, where they lived, and Manhattan. After working as a steamship captain, Vanderbilt went into business for himself in the late 1820s, and eventually became one of the country’s largest steamship operators.
How many children did Vanderbilt have?
In 1813, Vanderbilt married his cousin Sophia Johnson, and the couple eventually had 13 children. (A year after his first wife died in 1868, Vanderbilt married another female cousin, Frank Armstrong Crawford, who was more than four decades his junior.)
How much was Vanderbilt worth when he died?
When Vanderbilt died, he was worth more than $100 million.
Where were the Vanderbilt mansions built?
The Vanderbilt mansions associated with the Gilded Age, including the Breakers in Newport, Rhode Island and the Biltmore in Asheville, North Carolina, were built by Cornelius Vanderbilt’s descendants. (The 250-room Biltmore estate, constructed in the late 19th century by one of Vanderbilt’s grandsons, is the largest privately owned home in the United States today.)
Who was the American industrialist who controlled the Erie Railroad?
American industrialist Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794 - 1877) standing astride two railroads competing with James Fisk (1835 - 1872) for control of the Erie Railroad.
Where did Vanderbilt build his home?
In the 1840s, Vanderbilt constructed a large brick home for his family at 10 Washington Place, in Manhattan’s present-day Greenwich Village neighborhood. Despite his growing wealth, the city’s elite residents were slow to accept Vanderbilt, considering him rough and uncultured. Recommended for you.
Who Was Cornelius Vanderbilt?
Cornelius Vanderbilt began a passenger ferry business in New York harbor with one boat, then started his own steamship company, eventually controlling Hudson River traffic. He also provided the first rail service between New York and Chicago. When he died in 1877, Vanderbilt had amassed the largest fortune accumulated in the U.S. at that time. Vanderbilt is deemed one of America's leading businessmen, and is credited for helping to shape the present-day United States.
What was Vanderbilt's business?
In 1851, Vanderbilt expanded his shipping business, forming the Accessory Transit Company to transport passengers from New York City to San Francisco via the Nicaraguan isthmus. Again, his timing was perfect. The California Gold Rush brought enormous demand for passage to the West Coast. Though offering a treacherous ride for its users, the Transit Company was a success. By 1852, his competition had had enough and offered him $40,000 a month to abandon his operations. Nearing 60 years old, Vanderbilt was ready for something else. He purchased a large yacht, christened the North Star, and took his extended family on a grand tour of Europe at the cost of half a million dollars.
What was the name of the ship that Vanderbilt ran?
At age 11, young Vanderbilt quit school to work with his father, ferrying cargo and passengers between Staten Island and Manhattan. Legend has it that at age 16, Vanderbilt ran a two-mast sailing vessel, known as a periauger; the enterprise came with the understanding that he would have to share profits with his parents, who had supplied a loan. Through aggressive marketing, shrewd deals and undercutting the competition—traits that he would practice all his life—he earned more than $1,000 in his first year.
What was Vanderbilt known for?
Vanderbilt soon became known for his sharp business acumen. During the 1830s, he built profitable shipping lines in the New York region, undercutting competitors’ fares and offering top service. Competitors struggled and finally paid him to take his business elsewhere. He then shifted his operations to the Hudson River, going head to head against the Hudson River Steamboat Association, another monopoly. Capitalizing on the populist language of President Andrew Jackson, he named his service the "People’s Line," offering cheap fares for all. The Association bought him out for $100,000 and annual payments of $5,000. Implementing this business model several times made Vanderbilt a millionaire.
How much did Vanderbilt make in his first year?
Through aggressive marketing, shrewd deals and undercutting the competition—traits that he would practice all his life—he earned more than $1,000 in his first year. At age 18, Vanderbilt contracted with the U.S. government to supply neighboring outposts during the War of 1812.
How did Vanderbilt die?
He died on January 4, 1877, presumably of exhaustion , brought on by complications associated with intestinal, stomach and heart disorders, which may have also been connected to syphilis.
How much money did William Henry leave to his son?
In his will, he left $90 million, the bulk of his estate, to his son William Henry, who worked in his father's business, and $7.5 million to William’s four sons. His other son, the sickly Cornelius Jeremiah, received a $200,000 trust fund. His wife and daughters allegedly received amounts ranging anywhere from $200,000 to $500,000 and property ...
How did Cornelius Vanderbilt die?
10 Washington Place, after having been confined to his rooms for about eight months. The immediate cause of his death was exhaustion, brought on by long suffering from a complication of chronic disorders.
What was Vanderbilt known for?
Nicknamed "The Commodore", he is known for owning the New York Central Railroad.
What was the name of the ship that Vanderbilt sailed on?
At the age of 16, Vanderbilt decided to start his own ferry service. According to one version of events, he borrowed $100 from his mother to purchase a periauger (a shallow draft, two-masted sailing vessel), which he christened the Swiftsure. However, according to the first account of his life, published in 1853, the periauger belonged to his father and the younger Vanderbilt received half the profit. He began his business by ferrying freight and passengers on a ferry between Staten Island and Manhattan. Such was his energy and eagerness in his trade that other captains nearby took to calling him The Commodore in jest—a nickname that stuck with him all his life.
How much money did Vanderbilt give his daughters?
Commodore Vanderbilt willed amounts ranging from $250,000 to $500,000 to each of his daughters. His wife received $500,000, their New York City home, and 2,000 shares of common stock in the New York Central Railroad. To his younger surviving son, Cornelius Jeremiah Vanderbilt, whom he regarded as a wastrel, he left the income from a $200,000 trust fund. The Commodore had lived in relative modesty considering his nearly unlimited means, splurging only on race horses. His descendants were the ones who built the Vanderbilt houses that characterize America's Gilded Age. (Although his daughters and Cornelius received bequests much smaller than those of their brother William, these made them very wealthy by the standards of 1877 and were not subject to inheritance tax .)
What court did Vanderbilt appeal?
Vanderbilt appealed his own case against the monopoly to the Supreme Court, which was next on the docket after Gibbons v. Ogden. The Court never heard Vanderbilt's case, because on March 2, 1824, it ruled in Gibbons' favor, saying that states had no power to interfere with interstate commerce.
Why did Vanderbilt and Drew become secret partners?
Impressed, Vanderbilt became a secret partner with Drew for the next thirty years, so that the two men would have an incentive to avoid competing with each other. On November 8, 1833, Vanderbilt was nearly killed in the Hightstown rail accident on the Camden and Amboy Railroad in New Jersey.
How many children did Jeremiah Vanderbilt have?
This left his only other living son, Cornelius Jeremiah Vanderbilt, and 9 daughters (Phebe Jane, Ethelinda, Eliza, Emily Almira, Sophia Johnson, Maria Louisa, Frances Lavinia, Mary Alicia, and Catherine Juliette), to receive comparatively little inheritance; far less than even their young nephews.
Who is Cornelius Vanderbilt?
Cornelius Vanderbilt is one of the five tycoons of America. He was able to use both wit and his entrepreneurial skills in order to create a very successful career and legacy. Starting off from the very beginning, young Vanderbilt was able to start his own business. At the age of sixteen, Vanderbilt decided to start his own ferry service with the loan he received by working through his Mother. With the one hundred he was able to obtain, by clearing and planting eight-acre field, Vanderbilt purchased
What was Cornelius Vanderbilt's influence on the world?
Cornelius Vanderbilt was one of the most influential people of the 19th century by being a shipping and railroad tycoon (history.com). He shaped the way future American businesses will operate. Vanderbilt was a ruthless and competitive man (history.com). This approach to business will be what helps him to defeat a Steamboat Monopoly granted by the New York Legislature. This ruling in the law will influence future court cases (McBride, “Landmark Cases”). The act of 1798 is a law that was granted by the New York State Legislature to Robert Livingston and Robert Fulton (New York State Library, “Steamboat Timeline”). They were granted 30 year monopoly on the steamboat navigation on the New York waterfront (New York State Library, “Steamboat Timeline”). In 1813, New Jersey Legislature granted Aaron Ogden the monopoly to navigate on the…show more content…
How did the United States experience a gross net benefit by the existence of robber barons?
The book starts by diving into the steamship industry while closely following the business life of Cornelius Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt started his steamboat industry life big as he was given the task of breaking up a strict monopoly that had taken over all of the boat traffic in New York for the past thirty years. Right from the start Vanderbilt used illegal means of operating business by avoiding the law to ship passengers
Who was the leader of the steamboat industry during the Industrial Revolution?
One of the very famous business leaders during the Industrial Revolution was Cornelius Vanderbilt. Cornelius Vanderbilt was a captain of industry who helped to make America strong. Cornelius Vanderbilt was the the leader of steamboats and railroads who built important infrastructures in the 1800s that helped the American economy to thrive. According to Charles R. Geisst in his article Vanderbilt, Cornelius, before Vanderbilt entered the steamship industry, he already owned a shipping
Who were the three men who helped build the economic statues?
time and set forth the principles in which we now see the financial side of business. Three of these men were Cornelius Vanderbilt, John D. Rockefeller, and Andrew Carnegie. They are held in high esteem and added their own unique twist to the building of the economic statues we hold today, while still having a few things in common. The first to make his mark on the scene was Cornelius Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt was born on May 27, 1794 in Staten Island. He helped his father
Who was Cornelius Vanderbilt?
Cornelius Vanderbilt, American shipping and railroad magnate who acquired a personal fortune of more than $100 million. Vanderbilt began his transportation empire by operating a ferryboat between Staten Island and New York City. By the 1850s he had shifted his focus from steamships to railroads.
What railroad did Vanderbilt own?
He later acquired the Hudson River Railroad and the New York Central Railroad and consolidated them in 1869. When he added the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railroad in 1873, Vanderbilt was able to offer the first rail service from New York City to Chicago.
What did Vanderbilt do in 1810?
In 1810 he purchased his first boat with money borrowed from his parents. He used the boat to ferry passengers between Staten Island and New York City.
What did Vanderbilt learn about the Hudson River?
While in Gibbons’s employ (1818–29), Vanderbilt learned the steamship business and acquired the capital that he would use in 1829 to start his own steamship company. During the next decade, Vanderbilt gained control of the traffic on the Hudson River by cutting fares and offering unprecedented luxury on his ships.
Why did Vanderbilt quit his company?
With the enormous demand for passage to the West Coast brought about by the 1849 gold rush, Vanderbilt’s Accessory Transit Company proved a huge success. He quit the business only after his competitors —whom he had nearly ruined—agreed to pay him $40,000 (later it rose to $56,000) a month to abandon his operation.
When was Vanderbilt University founded?
When shipping and railroad magnate Cornelius Vanderbiltdonated $1,000,000 in 1873, the school was founded as Vanderbilt University, and classes began two years later. Initially, the university was divided into departments of academics, Bible, law, and medicine; preparatory classes were offered through 1887. The first doctorate was granted in 1879,…
What was Vanderbilt's economics?
When Vanderbilt became a steamboat operator in 1817, the mercantile economy was controlled by an elite circle of Anglo-Dutch bankers and merchants dominant since the pre-Revolutionary era. Its members enjoyed a privileged position, in particular an entitlement to exclusive corporate charters issued by state and local governments to carry on various businesses: steamboat lines, turnpikes, railroads, canals and other facets of infrastructure vital to a trading society. The democracy for which the Jacksonian era is so well-known was marked by the desire to open up this state-supported, insular mercantile economy to every man. Antebellum America boiled with entrepreneurial energies; go-getters roamed the land eager to take advantage of the flood of business opportunities that accompanied the country’s territorial expansion. Aspiring men on the make denounced established ones, especially those enjoying the favors of the government, as monopolists and aristocrats. They sought a truly free market economy, universal incorporation laws and the end of state-sanctioned monopolies. It was a war against one form of capitalism on behalf of another.
What was Vanderbilt's first opportunity to transform his steamboat business into a transoceanic one?
The discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill presented the opportunity for Vanderbilt to transform his Atlantic Coast steamboat business into a transoceanic one, transporting passengers west to the gold fields and, more important, carrying gold back east to New York’s banks.
Why was Vanderbilt important?
Stiles makes a persuasive case that Vanderbilt was an important figure in the struggle to unseat an older, patrician form of capitalism. Although he was apolitical, neither a Whig nor a Democrat, and involved himself in politics only when it suited his immediate business objectives, Vanderbilt was in many ways the perfect Jacksonian. Again and again he challenged the state-sanctioned franchises run by politically connected grandees in New York and New England. He established rival steamboat lines, using his detailed knowledge of ship construction and the vagaries of the sea to drive established franchises into bankruptcy. He sank others in court. And he was hardly bashful when it came to deploying democratic rhetoric to discredit his top-drawer enemies while concealing his predatory aims.
What is Stiles's analysis of the political economy of the antebellum North?
Stiles’s talents are by no means limited to his descriptive powers. His analysis of the political economy of the antebellum North is often compelling . He calls Vanderbilt a “shopkeeper of the sea,” a wonderful metaphor that conveys the distinctly mercantile character of the American economy in the decades leading up to the Civil War. It was an economy that rested on trade, not manufacturing, and the Commodore mastered it because he managed to control much of its motorized transport: first the steamboat coastal and then transatlantic trade, and later the land commerce carried by steam-driven railroads. Vanderbilt made his fortune and acquired power in this earlier, commercial phase of American development, not during the subsequent industrialization that made his fellow robber barons so rich and famous.
Why is Stiles blind to the distinction?
Stiles seems willfully blind to the distinction, so intent is he on proving Vanderbilt’s surpassing historical stature. That’s because, for Stiles, associating Vanderbilt with modernity is axiomatically a good thing.
What is the Great Fortunes and How They Were Made?
Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made, a classic celebration of self-made American heroes published in 1871, described Vanderbilt’s “mind of crystal, the heart of adamant, the hand of steel, and the will of iron.”. In a more distanced and dispassionate way, Stiles endorses this romantic portrait of the Commodore.
What is Vanderbilt's rise from small-time ferry boat operator on Staten Island to the dominant figure?
Vanderbilt’s rise from small-time ferry boat operator on Staten Island to the dominant figure in the nation’s maritime (steamboat) and land (railroad) transportation system is a fascinating story, and Stiles tells it well. His writing is lively and colorful.
Overview
Early years
- A descendant of Dutch settlers who came to America in the mid-1600s, Cornelius Vanderbilt was born into humble circumstances on May 27, 1794, on Staten Island, New York. His parents were farmers and his father also made money by ferrying produce and merchandise between Staten Island and Manhattan in his two-masted sailing vessel, known as a periauger. As a boy, the youn…
Family
- In 1813, Vanderbilt married his cousin Sophia Johnson, and the couple eventually had 13 children. (A year after his first wife died in 1868, Vanderbilt married another female cousin, Frank Armstrong Crawford, who was more than four decades his junior.)
Early career
- In 1817, Vanderbilt went to work as a ferry captain for a wealthy businessman who owned a commercial steamboat service that operated between New Jersey and New York. The job provided Vanderbilt the opportunity to learn about the burgeoning steamship industry. In the late 1820s, he went into business on his own, building steamships and operating ferry lines around t…
Construction
- Vanderbilt was the driving force behind the construction of Manhattans Grand Central Depot, which opened in 1871. The station eventually was torn down and replaced by present-day Grand Central Terminal, which opened in 1913.
Philanthropy
- Unlike the Gilded Age titans who followed him, such as steel magnate Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919) and oil mogul John Rockefeller (1839-1937), Vanderbilt did not own grand homes or give away much of his vast wealth to charitable causes. In fact, the only substantial philanthropic donation he made was in 1873, toward the end of his life, when he gave $1 million to build and e…
Legacy
- The Vanderbilt mansions associated with the Gilded Age, including the Breakers in Newport, Rhode Island, and the Biltmore in Asheville, North Carolina, were built by Cornelius Vanderbilts descendants. (The 250-room Biltmore estate, constructed in the late 19th century by one of Vanderbilts grandsons, is the largest privately owned home in the United States today.)
Death and legacy
- Vanderbilt died at age 82 on January 4, 1877, at his Manhattan home, and was buried in the Moravian Cemetery in New Dorp, Staten Island. He left the bulk of his fortune, estimated at more than $100 million, to his son William (1821-85).
Overview
Cornelius Vanderbilt (May 27, 1794 – January 4, 1877), nicknamed "the Commodore", was an American business magnate who built his wealth in railroads and shipping. After working with his father's business, Vanderbilt worked his way into leadership positions in the inland water trade and invested in the rapidly growing railroad industry, effectively transforming the geography o…
Steamboat entrepreneur
After Thomas Gibbons died in 1826, Vanderbilt worked for Gibbons' son William until 1829. Though he had always run his own businesses on the side, he now worked entirely for himself. Step by step, he started lines between New York and the surrounding region. First he took over Gibbons' ferry to New Jersey, then switched to western Long Island Sound. In 1831, he took over his brother Jaco…
Ancestry
Cornelius Vanderbilt's great-great-great-grandfather, Jan Aertson or Aertszoon ("Aert's son"), was a Dutch farmer from the village of De Bilt in Utrecht, Netherlands, who emigrated to New Amsterdam (later New York) as an indentured servant in 1650. The Dutch van der ("of the") was eventually added to Aertson's village name to create "van der Bilt" ("of the Bilt"). This was eventually condensed to Vanderbilt. Anthony Janszoon van Salee was another of Cornelius Vand…
Early years
Cornelius Vanderbilt was born in Staten Island, New York, on May 27, 1794, to Cornelius van Derbilt and Phebe Hand. He began working on his father's ferry in New York Harbor as a boy, quitting school at the age of 11. At the age of 16, Vanderbilt decided to start his own ferry service. According to one version of events, he borrowed $100 (equivalent to $1,700 in 2021) from his mother to purchase a periauger (a shallow draft, two-masted sailing vessel), which he christened …
Oceangoing steamship lines
When the California gold rush began in 1849, Vanderbilt switched from regional steamboat lines to ocean-going steamships. Many of the migrants to California, and almost all of the gold returning to the East Coast, went by steamship to Panama, where mule trains and canoes provided transportation across the isthmus. (The Panama Railroad was soon built to provide a faster crossing.) Va…
American Civil War
When the Civil War began in 1861, Vanderbilt attempted to donate his largest steamship, the Vanderbilt, to the Union Navy. Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles refused it, thinking its operation and maintenance too expensive for what he expected to be a short war. Vanderbilt had little choice but to lease it to the War Department, at prices set by ship brokers. When the Confederate ironclad Virginia (popularly known in the North as the Merrimack) wrought havoc with the Union …
Railroad empire
Though Vanderbilt had relinquished his presidency of the Stonington Railroad during the California gold rush, he took an interest in several railroads during the 1850s, serving on the boards of directors of the Erie Railway, the Central Railroad of New Jersey, the Hartford and New Haven, and the New York and Harlem (popularly known as the Harlem). In 1863, Vanderbilt took control of the Harle…
Later years and philanthropy
Following his wife Sophia's death in 1868, Vanderbilt went to Canada. On August 21, 1869, in London, Ontario, he married a cousin from Mobile, Alabama, with the name — unusual for a woman — of Frank Armstrong Crawford. Vanderbilt's second wife convinced him to give $1 million, the largest charitable gift in American history to that date, to Bishop Holland Nimmons McTyeire, the husb…