The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt Paperback – Illustrated, April 20, 2010

The life of Cornelius Vanderbilt is fascinating. T.J Stiles does a fantastic job of detailing the life of Vanderbilt in thorough detail from his birth to his death. Born in 1794 and breathing his last breath in Jan 1877 Cornelius Vanderbit led an incredibly full life starting with nothing and ending with the largest estate in the United States at the date of his passing. He lived through fascinating times being born just afer independence and living through the civil war and industrialization of the country. T.J Stiles takes the reader through the life of the great man as well as a journey through the times in which Vanderbilt lived including the political and economic climate that defined the man and how he evolved with the changing times.The book is split into 3 major parts. He sets the stage by starting at the end and the court case over the Vanderbilt estate: the vast majority of the Vanderbilt estate was left to William Vanderbilt with a fraction left to the rest of his large family. The author discusses his formative years and how he scrapped together money to buy his first boats to ferry passengers back and forth his beginnings were humble. He then started working for Gibbons which was a defining moment for Vanderbilt as the larger than life Gibbons was a strong personality that fundamentally shaped Vanderbilt and his perspective on business. One goes through supreme court history in the Vanderbilt biography and gets taken through one of the first seminal cases, Gibbons vs Ogden which was a defining case for interstate trade and the ability of states to set local monopolies. The author details the tactics of competitive steam boat businesses and the ruthless characters involved. The lawlessness of the land is learnt through the history told. The author moves chronologically through Vanderbilt's life and details the growing fleet of ships Vanderbilt controls and the vast steamships he commissions. Gibbons passes away and his tie to his mentor's family is severed with rivalry with the son. Vanderbilt becomes his own man and the author takes the reader through history and the political and intellectual backdrop. The author tries to get the reader to appreciate the Jacksonian view of small scale business and laissez faire capitalism as invisioned by Jackson and how Vanderbilt's businesses were in early stage raw capitalism where participants were vying for monopoly rights through short term competition. The author details how politicians are intimately involved in speculation, using their power to manipulate outcomes favorable for their stock positions. The reader is introduced to "bull runs" and "bear runs" on stocks as well as cornering of markets by speculators to squeeze the positions of others. The complete insider trading aspects of the market are starkly shown. Vanderbilt evolves as a character, always focused on the markets as an owner operator despite the fact that ownership migrates from private partnership to public listed corporations. His attitude sets him ahead of his competitors as he always made his businesses operationally efficient due to longer term alignment of interest. The disregard for labour during this era is discussed as well. The author discusses how Vanderbilt moved from steamships to railroads. The capital commitment for railroads was a multiple for other businesses. Vanderbilt himself almost died from a railroad accident when they were first being built as a passenger car he was in derailed. Despite the difference in scale, Vanderbilt continued to focus on railroads in an owner/operator mentality. He competed, consolidated and tried to create regional monopolies. The author details his family life and the paths forged by his children and inlaws. One gets a real human side from the author as he details the often strained relationships with his children. Vanderbilt was sharp and committed until the end when he died as the richest man in America.The life of Vanderbilt is fascinating and filled with details about the lives of his colorful contempories like Daniel Drew, Jay Gould, Augustus Schell, to name a few. The book is long and it takes a while to get through this but it is well worth the time. One gets a sense of how business was conducted 150 years ago and the economic and political debates of the time. One also gets a sense of how the industrial revolution was changing everything and the life of a man who was at the center of it and helped shaped the economic outcomes. We learn of how panics and overconfidence bankrupted many a men and how Vanderbilt managed a growing empire through the turbulent times. Definitely worthwhile read for both economic and american history.

Before reading The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt by T.J. Stiles, I didn't know much about the man except that he was one of America's first robber barons and the richest man in America. But after reading this impressive work, I have a new appreciation for the Commodore.Vanderbilt was born on Staten Island to hard-working but thrifty parents. He got his start in boating when he was sixteen. He borrowed $100 from his mother to purchase a periauger. Soon, he was ferrying people and goods to New York City, plowing his profits into more ships, and then steamboats. As a competitor, he was cut-throat. Some of his enemies actually paid him to discontinue his lines. At the age when most men at that time were no longer alive, he abandoned ships and started a new career in railroads. The Commodore started small, and then added more and more lines--consolidating them as he went. Before Vanderbilt established the trunk line, the New York Central, it took 17 trains to ride from New York to Chicago. Many enemies tried to swindle or outsmart the Commodore, but his deep pockets protected him in almost all situations.Many things impressed me about Cornelius Vanderbilt. He was a strapping fellow who knew how to take command. He was a financial genius when it came to the stock market. He knew ships well enough to produce revolutionary designs that made for safer, more economic travel. Although not a political man, he was a patriot. During the Civil War, he donated and leased a number of ships to the Union. Afterward, he helped to heal the wounds between North and South by providing the bond to free Jefferson Davis and to create Vanderbilt University on Southern soil. He helped to put New York City on the map as America's financial capital. Although some considered him a scoundrel, he had a code of honor and his word was binding. He battled many men over the years and was betrayed by his friends. But he rarely held a grudge and knew how to separate business and friendship. "He embraced new technologies and new forms of business organization, and used them to compete so successfully that he forced his rivals to follow his example or give up. Far ahead of many of his peers, he grasped one of the great changes in American culture: the abstraction of economic reality, as the connection faded between the tangible world and the new devices of business, such as paper currency, corporations, and securities. With these devices he helped to create the corporate economy that would define the United States into the twenty-first century."Stiles does an admirable job of detailing both the professional and personal life of the Commodore. The business side could be quite complicated at times--especially the stock market and financial maneuverings. The author also sets the record straight about many myths that have been told about Vanderbilt. I do wish there was more information about his daughters, but there is little of written record from these women.The First Tycoon includes many photos and drawings, as well as maps. But I wish it included a family tree. But what kept me from giving this book five stars is that the index is shoddy. Many items are off by a page or two. Toward the end, many of the names mentioned are lacking page numbers in the index. Some names are missing entirely. For instance, who is Harry Allen (page 534)? Maybe it had to do with shifting from hardback to paperback versions. Also, my copy is a large paperback and the binding glue was not strong enough. My book was is pieces before I finished, although I didn't deduct any points for this and Amazon is replacing my copy.While the Vanderbilt fortune no longer exists, the Commodore's contributions are still relevant today. I think that The First Tycoon will stand as the most comprehensive biography done to date. It was certainly deserving of the Pulitzer Prize.