The Life & Legend of E. H. Harriman

Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 2000. First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. xiv, [2], 521, [3] pages. Illustrations. Notes. Index. DJ has slight wear and soiling. Maury Klein (born 14 March 1939 in Memphis, Tennessee) is an American historian and author of books on 19th-century American history and the American railroad industry. Klein taught for a year at Emory before accepting a job at the University of Rhode Island in September 1964. He remained at that institution until his retirement in June 2008, teaching a wide variety of courses and writing on a diverse number of subjects. In 1973 he was promoted to full professor of history. He spent the year 1966-67 as a Newcomen Fellow at the Harvard Business School. Throughout his career writing has remained Klein's greatest passion. He is the author of 18 books, along with many articles in publications ranging from scholarly journals to Sports Illustrated. Railroad history emerged early as one of his specialties. His Harriman biography was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. To Americans living in the early twentieth century, E. H. Harriman was as familiar a name as J. P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, and Andrew Carnegie. Like his fellow businessmen, Harriman (1847-1909) had become the symbol for an entire industry: Morgan stood for banking, Rockefeller for oil, Carnegie for iron and steel, and Harriman for railroads. Here, Maury Klein offers the first in-depth biography in more than seventy-five years of this influential yet surprisingly understudied figure. A Wall Street banker until age fifty, Harriman catapulted into the railroad arena in 1897, gaining control of the Union Pacific Railroad as it emerged from bankruptcy and successfully modernizing every aspect of its operation. He went on to expand his empire by acquiring large stakes in other railroads, including the Southern Pacific and the Baltimore and Ohio, in the process clashing with such foes as James J. Hill, J. P. Morgan, and Theodore Roosevelt. With its new insights into the myths and controversies that surround Harriman's career, this book reasserts his legacy as one of the great turn-of-the-century business titans.