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Message
The Richest Americans in History
Posted on 6/4/14 at 8:40 am
Posted on 6/4/14 at 8:40 am
Pretty interesting.
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and the #1 OT Baller was
quote:
Source: *Most nominal wealth estimates are from The Wealthy 100 by Michael Klepper and Robert Gunther, and include wealth at time of death, including bequests. Estimates were then calculated as a fraction of the overall economy at time of death by Sam Williamson of Measuring Worth, and then presented in 2013 dollars based on the size of the current U.S. economy. Estimates for Gates and Buffett provided by Wealth-X.
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Jay Gould
Adjusted wealth*: $78.3 billion
Lived: 1836-1892
Gould was a railroad executive, financier and speculator, and considered one of the most unscrupulous businessmen in U.S. history.
Land grabs, stock watering, bribes -- Gould was accused of it all. He once won control of a railroad company from Vanderbilt by issuing false stock, and then bribing New York regulators to approve the sale.
As a result, he had few friends and was largely shunned by New York society, though he died a rich man.
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Frederick Weyerhäuser
Adjusted wealth*: $91.2 billion
Lived: 1834-1914
Timber, lumber and paper magnate Frederick Weyerhäuser and his family were once rumored to control an area the size of Wisconsin.
The Weyerhaeuser (WY) company replanted the trees it cut, and is still considered one of the more responsible forest products firms.
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Alexander Turney Stewart
Adjusted wealth*: $100 billion
Lived: 1803-1876
An Irish-born textile merchant, Stewart went on to run one of the biggest wholesale and retail dry goods businesses in the United States and was a major uniform supplier to the Union Army during the civil war.
His big innovation was to eliminate haggling over retail goods, instead opting for fixed pricing.
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Stephen Van Rensselaer
Adjusted wealth*: $101 billion (tie)
Lived: 1764-1839
Van Rensselaer was the last in a line of aristocrats that had been given vast land grants in the New World under Dutch colonial rule. At one point he controlled over a million acres in New York State and had up to 100,000 tenants living on his land. He's the only member on this list to entirely inherit his fortune.
But Van Rensselaer was a progressive at heart, and let much of the rent owed to him slide. He also divided his estate among his 10 children instead of granting it all to his eldest son, which was the custom at the time.
In addition to founding Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, he also helped finance work on the Erie Canal, commanded 6,000 men during the War of 1812, and was a U.S. Congressman.
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Andrew Carnegie
Adjusted wealth*: $101 billion (tie)
Lived: 1835-1919
Founder of the Carnegie Steel Company, Carnegie is perhaps even more famous for giving his fortune away.
After selling his steel behemoth to J.P. Morgan's U.S. Steel, Carnegie established a number of philanthropic and non-profit organizations including the Carnegie Corporation, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and nearly 3,000 public libraries.
A "man who dies rich dies disgraced," he wrote in Wealth, his most famous essay.
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Richard Mellon
Adjusted wealth*: $103 billion
Lived: 1858-1933
Richard and brother Andrew (No. 15) were Pittsburgh bankers that had a hand in a variety of burgeoning 19th century industries, including steel, oil, coal and railroads.
In addition to Mellon Bank, the companies they helped found include Gulf Oil and aluminum maker Alcoa (AA).
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Stephen Girard
Adjusted wealth*: $120 billion
Lived: 1750-1831
The French-born Girard started as a cabin boy working the Europe-Caribbean trade route, and became a sea captain by the age of 23. Eventually he owned a fleet of trading ships.
He went on to settle in Philadelphia and used his shipping wealth to become a financier, buying banks and lending money to the U.S. government during the war of 1812. While some of his business practices were thought to have been unscrupulous, he left nearly his entire fortune to charity when he died.
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John Jacob Astor
Adjusted wealth*: $138 billion
Lived: 1763-1848
Astor got his start as a fur trader after hearing a fellow traveler talk about the profession on his voyage to America. A penniless German immigrant, his business endeavors were helped when he married his wife, who came from a wealthy family.
But his real money came from investing in Manhattan real estate. By the time his son ran the family businesses, the Astors owned over 700 Manhattan properties.
The Astor family fortune was one of the most enduring of the top 20, thanks in part to the elder Astor's insistence that half his trust be set to skip a generation, preventing its squander by spendthrift heirs.
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Cornelius Vanderbilt
Adjusted wealth*: $205 billion
Lived: 1794-1877
Vanderbilt got his start sailing barges across New York Harbor, and gradually expanded into steamships and railroads. One of his favorite business tactics was to undercut the competition so heavily that they would pay him to stay out of a given market.
He was rough around the edges -- swearing, chewing tobacco -- and never really fit in with New York high society.
His heirs did better, building great mansions along New York's Park Avenue and hob-knobbing with the city's elite. But they spent heavily, and by a 1973 family reunion, not one of the 120 Vanderbilt descendants present was a millionaire.
and the #1 OT Baller was
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John D. Rockefeller
Adjusted wealth*: $253 billion
Lived: 1839-1937
Rockefeller made his fortune by revolutionizing the oil industry. Before his time, lamp oil was unpredictable. But he figured out a way to standardize the quality, and Standard Oil was born.
Rockefeller's shrewd business sense led to the rise of one of the biggest companies in the world. By 1880, Standard controlled 90% of the oil produced in the United States. The government broke it up in 1911 amid allegations of price fixing and other underhanded business dealings, but not before Rockefeller became the country's first billionaire.
He spent the last part of his life giving away much of his fortune, including money to found the University of Chicago and the Rockefeller Foundation. The companies that sprung from Standard Oil's breakup -- including ExxonMobil (XOM), Chevron (CVX), ConocoPhillips (COP) and a big chunk of what are now BP's (BP) U.S. operations -- remain among the world's largest.
Posted on 6/4/14 at 8:44 am to Byron Bojangles III
quote:
not one of the 120 Vanderbilt descendants present was a millionaire
Not even Gloria? Or did she make her money later?
Posted on 6/4/14 at 8:46 am to Byron Bojangles III
Notice that all these men are from mostly the 18th & 19th centuries? The youngest of them was born in 1858 and the last of them died in 1937.
Posted on 6/4/14 at 8:46 am to Byron Bojangles III
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The companies that sprung from Standard Oil's breakup -- including ExxonMobil (XOM), Chevron (CVX), ConocoPhillips (COP) and a big chunk of what are now BP's (BP) U.S. operations -- remain among the world's largest.
That kind of puts it all in perspective.
I'm also surprised J.P. Morgan didn't make the list.
Posted on 6/4/14 at 8:46 am to Byron Bojangles III
No JP Morgan? List is suspect.
He bought Carnegie Steel for $480 Million. Sure Carnegie gave all of his money away but he was at the time the richest man in the world after the deal with Morgan. So how is he behind Rockefeller, Vandy, and Mellon?
He bought Carnegie Steel for $480 Million. Sure Carnegie gave all of his money away but he was at the time the richest man in the world after the deal with Morgan. So how is he behind Rockefeller, Vandy, and Mellon?
Posted on 6/4/14 at 8:46 am to Byron Bojangles III
Ahh so many of then came from nothing back when people were not so entitled by the government.
Posted on 6/4/14 at 8:47 am to Byron Bojangles III
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Adjusted wealth*: $253 billion
I spend more than that condoms
Posted on 6/4/14 at 8:48 am to blkhawktiger
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List is suspect
Yeah I don't really rely on yahoo news facts
Posted on 6/4/14 at 8:52 am to Darth_Vader
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Notice that all these men are from mostly the 18th & 19th centuries? The youngest of them was born in 1858 and the last of them died in 1937.
See Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers.
Seriously, all these people had a frick ton of money that blows modern billionaires (Gates, Helu, etc) out of the water. But a list as this without JP Morgan is a joke. He was the greatest financier this country as ever seen and maybe that's difficult to calculate. But a man with enough money to buy out the #6 person on this list should be on here.
Posted on 6/4/14 at 8:52 am to blkhawktiger
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No JP Morgan? ? List is suspect.
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J.P. Morgan net worth: J.P. Morgan was born on April 17, 1837, and passed away in 1913. J.P. Morgan was a very successful businessman and the founder of the "J.P. Morgan and Company" who had an inflation-adjusted net worth of $41.5 billion.
Posted on 6/4/14 at 8:54 am to yellowfin
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Yeah I don't really rely on yahoo news facts
it's actually CNN news posted on yahoos website but whatevs
Posted on 6/4/14 at 8:55 am to Byron Bojangles III
If someone gave me a million dollars their is a 50/50 shot I'll double it for them within a day
Posted on 6/4/14 at 8:55 am to blkhawktiger
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See Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers.
Seriously, all these people had a frick ton of money that blows modern billionaires (Gates, Helu, etc) out of the water. But a list as this without JP Morgan is a joke. He was the greatest financier this country as ever seen and maybe that's difficult to calculate. But a man with enough money to buy out the #6 person on this list should be on here.
Yeah I'm not sure how Morgan did not make the list.
Posted on 6/4/14 at 8:55 am to Byron Bojangles III
I'd love to know what the present day heirs have left of these fortunes.
Posted on 6/4/14 at 8:57 am to Col reb 2011
Are you counting the 0 spot and the 00 spot in your calculation
Posted on 6/4/14 at 8:57 am to Catman88
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Ahh so many of then came from nothing back when people were not so entitled by the government.
And before anti-trust laws and most other white collar crimes existed. The good old days . . . [sigh]
Posted on 6/4/14 at 9:00 am to Catman88
damn I forgot about the green
Posted on 6/4/14 at 9:02 am to mt1
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And before anti-trust laws and most other white collar crimes existed. The good old days
not to mention the fact that companies could make their employees basically indentured servants--7 days a week, sunup to sundown, paid in "scrip" that could only be used at the company store, etc. etc...
Posted on 6/4/14 at 9:02 am to Darth_Vader
That is actually pretty easy to understand. Most of these people were not called barons for nothing. At that time there were few regulations to keep them from setting prices, insider trading in the stock market, and creating monopolies. There was also little regulation on the treatment of employees as well.
Posted on 6/4/14 at 9:03 am to Byron Bojangles III
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who had an inflation-adjusted net worth of $41.5 billion
Don't care. Bought your #6 person on the list.
Look I'm sure it's difficult to calculate. There's a ton of different factors involved (like at what point in their careers is this valuation calculated), but Morgan paid your #6 guy on this list. He financed the formation of General Electric and US Steel.
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