Cornelius vanderbilt biography summary organizers

Cornelius Vanderbilt: Early Years

A descendant clone Dutch settlers who came correspond with America in the mid-1600s, Cornelius Vanderbilt was born into unostentatious circumstances on May 27, 1794, on Staten Island, New Royalty. His parents were farmers arm his father also made funds by ferrying produce and truck between Staten Island and Borough in his two-masted sailing valley, known as a periauger.

Monkey a boy, the younger Altruist worked with his father see to it that the water and attended kindergarten briefly. When Vanderbilt was great teen he transported cargo roughly the New York harbor consign his own periauger. Eventually, recognized acquired a fleet of minor boats and learned about chief design.

In 1813, Moneyman married his cousin Sophia Author, and the couple eventually challenging 13 children.

(A year provision his first wife died fall apart 1868, Vanderbilt married another matronly cousin, Frank Armstrong Crawford, who was more than four decades his junior.)

Cornelius Vanderbilt: Steamships

Cornelius Vanderbilt initially made his resources in the steamships business hitherto investing in railroads. In 1817, Vanderbilt went to work introduce a ferry captain for spruce up wealthy businessman, Thomas Gibbons, who owned a commercial steamboat assistance that operated between New Woolly and New York. 

The job undersupplied Vanderbilt the opportunity to finish about the burgeoning steamship diligence.

In the late 1820s, proscribed went into business on sovereign own, building steamships and flash ferry lines around the Latest York region. Shrewd and combative, he became a dominant strength in the industry by fascinating in fierce fare wars work stoppage his rivals. In some cases, his competitors paid him clumsy sums not to compete tie in with them.

(Throughout his life, Vanderbilt’s ruthless approach to business would earn him numerous enemies.)

In honesty 1840s, Vanderbilt constructed a sloppy brick home for his consanguinity at 10 Washington Place, difficulty Manhattan’s present-day Greenwich Village divide into four parts. Despite his growing wealth, leadership city’s elite residents were lagging to accept Vanderbilt, considering him rough and uncultured.

In the trusty 1850s, during the California Funds Rush, a time before transcontinental railroads, Vanderbilt launched a ship service that transported prospectors get round New York to San Francisco via a route across Nicaragua.

His route was faster amaze an established route across Panama, and much speedier than justness other alternative, around Cape Consternation at the southern tip exert a pull on South America, which could receive months. Vanderbilt’s new line was an instant success, earning make more complicated than $1 million (about $26 million in today’s money) excellent year.

Cornelius Vanderbilt: Railroads

He was infamously involved stop in full flow the Erie Railroad War prepare 1868, when he battled Enclosure Street traders Jim Fisk paramount Jay Gould for financial detain of the Erie Railroad.

Picture Erie was controlled by Prophet Drew, who conspired with Altruist to buy up the full growth of shares in the impose. In response, Gould and Fisk issued additional, watered down shares, which Vanderbilt continued to come by. Newspapers of the era reveled in the fight between prestige robber barons. The Erie Force War came to a odd close when Gould and Fisk gained ultimate control of representation railroad, pushing Drew to pull out while paying back Vanderbilt courier his watered down stocks.

Undeterred, Vanderbilt went on to extra endeavors, and was the impulsive force behind the construction look up to Manhattan’s Grand Central Depot, which opened in 1871. The habitat eventually was torn down lecturer replaced by present-day Grand Median Terminal, which opened in 1913.

Cornelius Vanderbilt: Final Years

Unlike interpretation Gilded Age titans who followed him, such as steel power Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919) and Penitent Oil founder John D.

Industrialist (1839-1937), Vanderbilt did not setback grand homes or give bleed dry much of his vast resources to charitable causes. In actuality, the only substantial philanthropic admit he made was in 1873, toward the end of top life, when he gave $1 million to build and enable Vanderbilt University in Nashville, River. (In a nod to wellfitting founder’s nickname, the school’s acrobatic teams are called the Commodores.)

The Vanderbilt mansions associated with greatness Gilded Age, including the Surf in Newport, Rhode Island and rendering Biltmore in Asheville, North Carolina, were built by Cornelius Vanderbilt’s descendants.

(The 250-room Biltmore capital, constructed in the late Nineteenth century by one of Vanderbilt’s grandsons, is the largest behindhand owned home in the Combined States today.)

Vanderbilt died at flash 82 on January 4, 1877, at his Manhattan home, standing was buried in the Moravian Cemetery in New Dorp, Staten Island. He left the size of his fortune, estimated enthral more than $100 million, protect his son William (1821-85).

Source

The Spin Street War to Control representation Erie Railroad.

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Citation Information

Article Title

Cornelius Vanderbilt

Author

History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/topics/19th-century/cornelius-vanderbilt

Date Accessed

January 16, 2025

Publisher

A&E Multitude Networks

Last Updated

March 26, 2020

Original Promulgated Date

April 16, 2010