The First Tycoon

Summary

A definitive biography of Cornelius Vanderbilt, charting his rise from a Staten Island ferry operator to the architect of the modern American corporation through his dominance of steamships and railroads. Stiles draws on long-overlooked business records to recast Vanderbilt not as a crude robber baron but as a sophisticated financial innovator who helped invent industrial capitalism. The book offers a sweeping portrait of how nineteenth-century commerce remade the United States.