Robber Barons Dbq

Firstly in document one, it shows an interview with William H. Vanderbilt, Vanderbilt explains that the railroads are for the benefit of the stockholders and not for the benefit of the consumer. He also says “We only run it because we are forced to do so by the action of the Pennsylvania road. It doesn’t pay expenses. We would abandon it if it was not for our competitor keeping its train on.” like it is a pain for his business to do something that is not making any money. He even says that “the public be damned. What does the public care for the railroads except to get as much out of them for as small consideration as possible?” going even further and saying that the public does not care about his product. In document three which is an article

Vanderbilt written in 1882, during the peak of his wealth. The intended audience is the common folk of the United States, The way the document states the interview it makes it seem as if Vanderbilt is an evil man which in a way he was but at the same time he was a heavy philanthropist, funding Vanderbilt University. The purpose of this article is to show that the robber barons are greedy and are very stuck up about their business. Document two takes place in 1887 where Thomas Alva Edison is striving for a new factory to increase the efficiency of the manufacturing of the light bulb. He writes this to an investor in order to get the sufficient amount of funds to build the factory. He wants to build this factory in order to attempt to gain a monopoly on the light bulb industry. Thomas Edison is credited with inventing the light bulb so he wanted to mass produce it to make a lot of money. In document four, it is 1892 and the robber barons have become mainstream and people are worried about labor unions. The author’s intended audience is to the people of Congress. He writes it in order to inform and hopefully persuade representatives in Congress to do something about these robber barons. James Weaver ran for president twice and he probably pushed for labor unions due to this article and that is probably what made him lose because no major business would want to fund