At its peak, the Russian Empire was the third-largest in history
John D. Rockefeller founded the Standard Oil Company in 1870. By the early 1880s, Standard Oil owned nearly 90% of the refineries and pipelines in the United States. Rockefeller is widely considered the richest American of all time, his estimated personal wealth eclipsing US$400 billion in today's currency, adjusted for inflation.
Patriarch of the wealthy and influential Vanderbilt family, Cornelius Vanderbilt built his wealth in railroads and shipping. Nicknamed "Commodore," the business magnate acquired a personal fortune of roughly US$100 million, a sum equivalent to around $2.7 billion today.
Founder of the Ford Motor Company, Henry Ford is synonymous with the American automobile industry. As an industrialist, he revolutionized factory production with his assembly line methods. His Model T is one of the most influential vehicles ever made. At his peak, Ford would have had a net worth equivalent to US$200 billion in 2022, adjusted for inflation.
Born in Dunfermline, Scotland, Andrew Carnegie emigrated to the United States with his parents in 1848 at age 12. He went on to lead the expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century. Having built up a huge fortune, Carnegie later devoted himself to large-scale philanthropy—several universities and corporations are named after him, as is Carnegie Hall in New York City.
John Pierpont Morgan was the most powerful and influential financier of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Morgan financed railroads and helped organize US Steel Corporation, General Electric, and other major corporations. Accumulating vast wealth, Morgan was even able to help bail out the federal government twice during several economic crises, including the infamous Panic of 1907.
Inventor and businessman Thomas Edison is especially remembered for such innovations as the phonograph, the incandescent light bulb, and one of the earliest motion picture cameras. In fact, throughout his lifetime Edison acquired a record number of 1,093 patents (singly or jointly), and is also credited with creating the first industrial research lab.
William Randolph Hearst acquired his first newspaper, the San Francisco Examiner, in 1897. Over the next two decades, the flamboyant businessman built up a huge publishing empire, creating the largest newspaper chain and media company in America, Hearst Communications. Hearst's life and career was the inspiration behind Orson Welles' classic movie 'Citizen Kane' (1941).
Billionaire financier Howard Hughes remains one of the world's most enigmatic figures. The business magnate first gained prominence as a movie producer. He later expanded into the aviation industry before venturing into Las Vegas real estate, hotels, and casinos. His eccentric behavior and reclusive lifestyle is the subject of numerous films, television series, various literature, and music.
Industrialist and businessman Henry Clay Frick made his name—and a considerable amount of money—in the coal industry. He was also chairman of the Carnegie Steel Company and had interests in the giant US Steel manufacturing corporation. Frick later devoted himself to art and amassed a priceless collection of Old Masters now exhibited in the Frick Collection art museum in New York City.
Railroad magnate Jay Gould came to personify the robber baron of the late 19th century through his often unscrupulous financial speculation that, while turning him into one of the wealthiest men of the era, made him a despised and controversial figure. When he died, Gould was estimated to be worth US$72 million (equivalent to $2.2 billion in 2022).
Theodore Roosevelt unexpectedly assumed the presidency of the United States in September 1901 after the assassination of White House incumbent William McKinley. Though not a captain of industry, Roosevelt became a driving force for anti-trust policies in an effort to break up industrial monopolies that in his view were largely being run by a corrupt and arrogant new class of super rich.
Charles M. Schwab was an early entrepreneur of the burgeoning steel industry in the United States. He served as president of both the Carnegie Steel Company and US Steel Corporation. Later under his stewardship, Bethlehem Steel became the second-largest steel maker in the nation, and one of the most important heavy metal manufacturers in the world.
Respected railroad executive Thomas A. Scott was instrumental in expanding the Pennsylvania Railroad. His vision of establishing a transcontinental railroad was never realized, partly due to the outbreak of the American Civil War. Instead, in 1861, President Abraham Lincoln appointed him to serve as US Assistant Secretary of War, where he played a significant role in the use of rail travel for the Union war effort during the conflict.
Among the inventions pioneering Serbian-American engineer and physicist Nikola Tesla is known for is the Tesla coil, an electrical resonant transformer circuit used to produce high-voltage, low-current, high frequency alternating-current (A/C) electricity. He went on to invent the first A/C current motor. Though admired and respected by his peers, Tesla was never able to translate his inventions into long-term financial success.
A contemporary of Tesla and Thomas Edison, George Westinghouse was an industrialist who also recognized the potential of using alternating current for electric power distribution in the United States. His interest in railroads led Westinghouse to invent the railway airbrake, which he patented in 1869.
William McKinley, the 25th president of the United States, was regarded as a pro-business commander-in-chief who supported the protective tariff— the high tax on imported goods which served to safeguard American manufacturers from foreign competition—and the gold standard, a monetary system in which the standard economic unit of account is based on a fixed quantity of gold. By the same token, he also opposed some trusts and monopolies. President McKinley died on September 14, 1901 after being shot by anarchist Leon Czolgosz.
Industrialist and Republican politician Mark Hanna, the prosperous owner of a Cleveland coal and iron enterprise, used his wealth and business acumen to successfully manage William McKinley's presidential campaigns in 1896 and 1900. Hanna, whose commercial interests later included banking, transportation, and publishing, has been described as a political kingmaker and maintained a conviction that the welfare of business (and consequently the prosperity of the nation) was dependent upon the success of the Republican Party.
Financier Russell Sage recognized early on in his business career the vital role railroads would play in the development of the United States transport network. He eventually became president of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway, and also served as director for the Western Union telegraph company, amassing a fortune along the way.
One of the most famous—and notorious—names in American business history, Jean Paul Getty Sr. built his vast fortune as president of the Getty Oil Company. Throughout his career, Getty also amassed a considerable collection of valuable art, works that are now housed in the Getty Museum in Los Angeles. Despite his staggering wealth—at his death, he was worth more than US$6 billion (approximately $30 billion in 2022)—Getty was famously frugal, even attempting to negotiate his grandson's kidnapping ransom in 1973, an event depicted in the 2017 film 'All the Money in the World.'
In 1961, Chicago-born businessman Ray Kroc purchased McDonald's, having joined the company as a franchise agent in 1955 and helping to expand the fast food outlet to 228 restaurants. Kroc subsequently turned McDonald's into a multinational corporation that today serves over 70 million customers daily across over 38,000 outlets in over 100 countries.
Billionaire business magnate Henry Ross Perot was the founder and chief executive officer of Electronic Data Systems, an early pioneer in the burgeoning information technology industry. He later formed information technology services provider Perot Systems. In 1992, he ran as an independent presidential candidate. Though unsuccessful, his campaign wrong-footed the American political establishment and he ran again in 1996 as the nominee of the Reform Party.
Steve Jobs co-founded Apple Computers with Steve Wozniak, a company born out of a garage in Los Altos, California. He is widely recognized as the father of the personal computer revolution of the 1970s and 1980s, with his company pioneering a series of revolutionary technologies, including the iPhone and iPad. As of 2022, Apple's net worth is a staggering US$2.660 trillion.
The man responsible for the most iconic pants in the world is Levi Strauss, a Bavarian immigrant who arrived in San Francisco in 1850 during the Gold Rush, bringing dry goods for sale to miners. He founded Levi Strauss & Co. in 1853 using denim as a material to manufacture a pair of pants with copper riveting added to the pockets for extra durability. When he died in 1902, Strauss was worth US$6 million, equivalent to over $197 million today, adjusted for inflation.
In 1888, Asa Griggs Candler purchased the Coca-Cola formula from chemist John Stith Pemberton in Atlanta, Georgia. In 1891, Candler was sole owner of the Coca-Cola company, at a total cost to him of US$2,300 (roughly US$71,000 in 2022). His shrewd business acumen made him a multi-millionaire, and today the Coca-Cola brand is valued at $87.6 billion.
In this age of instant digital imagery, it's easy to forget that most of us once used roll film stock to produce a photograph. American entrepreneur George Eastman founded the Eastman Kodak Company and placed the first Kodak camera on the market in 1888. The following year he introduced roll film into the mainstream. By 1927, Eastman Kodak had a virtual monopoly of the photographic industry in the United States.
Madam C. J. Walker was the first female self-made millionaire in America, as recorded by Guinness World Records. An African American, Walker (born Sarah Breedlove) made her fortune thanks to her homemade line of hair care products for black women.
The Walt Disney name is associated with some of the most famous feature-length cartoons in cinema history, movies such as 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs' (1937), 'Dumbo' (1941), and 'Bambi' (1942). A pioneer in the American animation industry, Disney was an accomplished entrepreneur: the Disney Company he founded has become one of the world's largest entertainment conglomerates.
Sam Walton is the businessman behind Walmart, the multinational retail corporation he founded in Arkansas in 1962. His simple philosophy of saving the customer time and money turned Walmart into the world's largest company by revenue, according to the 2020 Fortune Global 500 list. For a while, Sam Walton was the richest man in America.
Shrewd and modest in equal measure, business magnate Warren Buffet is considered one of the most successful investors in the world. As of June 2023, his net worth is valued at over US$112 billion. Currently the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, a multinational conglomerate with interests in oil, insurance, real estate, and aviation, among other businesses, Buffet has pledged to give away 99% of his fortune to philanthropic causes, primarily via the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates currently has a net worth of around US$117 billion. Together with the late Paul Allen, Gates helped spark the microcomputer revolution of the 1970s and 1980s, with Microsoft becoming the world's largest personal computer software company. Despite parting ways with wife Melinda in 2021, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation still operates as one of the largest charitable foundations in the world.
Sources: (CNN Business) (Smithsonian Magazine) (The New York Times) (Guinness World Records) (Fortune) (CNBC)
Some of America's most successful business leaders and entrepreneurs emerged during the country's Gilded Age—which spanned most of the latter half of the 19th century, from around 1870 to 1900. These captains of industry made a huge impact in the United States and around the world in their respective careers, be it in oil, railroads, automobiles, shipping, finance, publishing, the sciences, and even politics. Later, equally shrewd and enterprising individuals would make their mark in photography, cinema, and information technology. All amassed great wealth, though some employed ethically questionable business practices to become known as robber barons. So, who are the tycoons that helped build the USA?
Click through for a richly rewarding look at America's top industrialists and business magnates.