John D Rockefeller founded Standard Oil @RockefellerFdn @StandardOilCo

Andrew Carnegie -Steel empire @CarnegieFdn

JP Morgan – rail road and banking. @jpmorgan

They consolidated foothold in their industry and destroyed all competition. They were monopolists and the richest.

Within 3 decades of civil war they took America to new heights.
Steel was used for building skyscrapers, railroad for connecting US and kerosene oil for lighting night lamps.

In 1895 crisis, Morgan handed over cheque of 500 million $ to save treasury from failing.

In 1896 elections, a new presidential nominee emerged who vowed to put end to their monopoly, they united and put their funding behind the other nominee.

At that time, voting was done in 2 boxes marked with Democrat and Republican

They put their man at polling booth to see who voted for whom and they were told not to come to work if other person wins.
The monopolist won and they continued their expansion. In 1900, Theodore Roosevelt emerged, they united to put him in useless position of Vice President

Their man won again but he was shot dead by a retrenched factory worker in 1901 putting Theodore Roosevelt in President seat.

He went first after standard oil and it was divided into 34 companies.

They had huge money, so they went after one another, Rockefeller purchased iron mine and started selling to Carnegie competitors at throwaway prices and made Carnegie buy it back from him at his own price.

Then Morgan went after Carnegie and put his right hand man to ask for a price from Carnegie and he was told he would be made head of empire.

Carnegie put price at 400 million$ and was paid by Morgan to make him richest man on planet.

Morgan renamed it as US Steel

After becoming richest man, Carnegie went on donation spree which was rivaled by Rockefeller.

When Henry Ford @Ford came on the scene, he was challenged for patent by automobile manufacturer association who said only they have patent to produce car but Ford won.

His car was cheaper but no one was buying it then he made a race with a racer in his car and he won which provided impetus to his car. He started assembly line manufacturing and reduced work week to 8 hours a day 5 days a week.

Thomas Edison came with idea of DC(Direct Current) electricity and JP Morgan son invested in it.
He made his house laboratory and powered it.
Alarmed Rockefeller went on campaign to paint it as dangerous as otherwise his kerosene will not be in demand.

Meanwhile Nikola tesla @NikolaTeslaFans who worked under Edison started working on AC (Alternating Current)electricity and got Westinghouse as investor. Both went on campaigning their own.

Alarmed Morgan advised Edison to do anything to stop march of Tesla.

Edison started demonstrating AC as highly dangerous and killed animals on live display. Justice department was using hanging as capital punishment, they sent letter to Edison to develop electricity to kill person. He made electric chair but first execution was a botched attempt

and they literally roasted the man. It led to criticism for electricity. Then there was a show where Tesla showed his skills. 400k light bulbs illuminated for 3 days

Meanwhile crisis truck and Morgan put his man to short Westinghouse stock & he was literally close to bankruptcy

Westinghouse went to Tesla to close his work then knowing that AC will be out, Tesla tore apart contract with Westinghouse and gave away all his royalties and patents to Westinghouse.

Govt was working on Niagara falls electricity plant and invited bids both Tesla and Edison bid. Tesla won

Meanwhile Morgan started buying stocks of Edison light bulb and after reducing Edison to minority threw him out of company and renamed company as General Electric.

Morgan then went to meet Westinghouse and said he will sue him for stealing electricity patents. Westinghouse said you would lose.
Morgan said of course I know but you will be bankrupt with cost of litigation then Westinghouse transferred all Tesla patents to General electric

General Electric became one of the top electricity company and continued to be so for more than century.

This thread is a summary of The Men Who Built America

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