Robber Barons

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• 5/22/2022
  

  Jane Stanford's Murder Shows the Moral Vacuum of Gilded Age Fortune and Philanthropy

  by Richard White

  Jane Stanford's murder by poisoning in 1905 was part of a long chain of inequities and moral abdications that attended the great Gilded Age fortunes at every step, from their accumulation to their dispersal as philanthropy. 

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• SOURCE: NBC News
  4/27/2022
  

  Musk's Twitter Bid Harkens Back to Hearst

  Richard White and Brad DeLong consider how the megabillionaire's bid for Twitter stacks up against other efforts by the ultra-rich to build media empires – is it more about attention and less about advancing financial interests? 

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• SOURCE: The Baffler
  4/21/2022
  

  Union Organizing in the Long Shadow of the Gilded Age

  by Daisy Pitkin

  On listening to Andrew Carnegie's "The Gospel of Wealth" in Pittsburgh's Carnegie Library as librarians perform the kind of social services Carnegie deplored (and try to organize a union, which he deplored more). 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  2/9/2021
  

  How Will Jeff Bezos Spend His Billions Now?

  by Margaret O'Mara

  John D. Rockefeller used philanthropy to blunt harsh criticism of his business practices and the social dysfunction represented by his immense wealth. What will his 21st-century analogue Jeff Bezos do for an image-burnishing second act? And will it be about service to the public or service to Bezos?