The Robber Barons; The Great American Capitalists 1861-1901

New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1934. First Edition [stated], presumed first printing. Hardcover. Fair. viii, [4], 474, [2] pages. Footnotes. Bibliography. Index. Cover worn and torn at top and middle of spine. Title written on front cover. Ink notation on fep. Sold as is. Matthew Josephson (February 15, 1899 - March 13, 1978) was an American journalist and author of works on nineteenth-century French literature and American political and business history of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Josephson popularized the term "robber baron". Matthew Josephson graduated from Columbia University in 1920. . His wife, librarian of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and an author in her own right, worked closely with her husband on various projects throughout their careers. In 1945 she and Malcolm Cowley edited Aragon, Poet of the Resistance. Matthew and Hannah Josephson collaborated on Al Smith: Hero of the Cities in 1969. He became associate editor of Broom: An International Magazine of the Arts (1922-24) and contributing editor of Transition (1928-29). . Josephson's first biographies were Zola and His Time (1928) and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1932). Influenced by the Depression, Josephson changed his focus of interest from literature to economic history when he published The Robber Barons in 1934. Rockefeller, Morgan, Vanderbilt, Carnegie, Harriman, Gould, Frick...this is the story of the giant American capitalists who seized economic power after the Civil War and altered the shape of American life forever. John D. Rockefeller became the richest man in America by consolidating his hold on the production and refining of petroleum through Standard Oil. J.P. Morgan was a banker equally at home in the refinement of London financial circles and the rough and tumble of American industry. Cornelius Vanderbilt founded a transportation empire based on steam and launched a family dynasty that became synonymous with wealth. Jay Gould was a railroad investor and speculator during the Gilded Age and is sometimes regarded as the epitome of the immoral robber baron. Andrew Carnegie immigrated from Scotland and grew enormously rich in the steel business, which he sold to JP Morgan to devote himself to philanthropy.