Vanderbilt Reflection

1.) Vanderbilt was the focus of the first episode with bits of Rockefeller and Carnegie. My favorite among the three was Vanderbilt because he was the first person to do business in such a cut throat and original way. Leaving the rest that came after him to learn from him and develop new techniques from what he had already shown them. Now, Vanderbilt came from the docks of New York City and he was extremely competitive for it. He earned the name Commodore from his time in the shipping business. That was his beginning with growing one boat into a fleet. Then, when the Civil War was getting ready to begin he sold his shipping empire, which was the largest in the world at that time. However, Vanderbilt was far from being done. He turned his eye
towards the railroads and what they would mean for the future. He started his railroad business and ended up outliving his heir, who happened to be his favorite son. So, he turned his attention to his second son William and began teaching him the ropes to the family business. His first major act of teaching what a Vanderbilt really was had to do with erecting a blockade over the only bridge that entered New York. One that Vanderbilt happened to own and his competitors conveniently forgotten when they refused to any deal terms that William was approved to set before them. As time goes on, Vanderbilt teams up with a young Rockefeller on an oil deal. An oil deal that Rockefeller is not even sure he can produce.
Anyway, Rockefeller manages to produce the agreed upon amount of oil for shipping in Vanderbilt’s cargo trains and comes up with the brand “Standard Oil.” Yet, Rockefeller double crosses Vanderbilt and does business with his major competitor Tom Scott and his apprentice Andrew Carnegie. Rockefeller company begins to grow and he develops the first monopoly. Nonetheless, with him earning more money and becoming the most powerful man at thirty-three years old in America, he was a cheapskate. He refused to renegotiate deals with the railroad companies that hauled his oil giving them a better price since they cut him a better deal when he was still building his own empire. So, the railroads formed an alliance to bring Rockefeller down. The young oil baron was not having it and pulled all his contracts with the train companies before building a pipeline that was over four thousand miles. This caused the Panic of 1873 which lead to the depression that followed, forcing a third of the train companies out of business. During the depression, the founder of cutthroat business deals and company take overs dies at the age of eighty-two. Now, some more happened that causes a battle of jabs between Rockefeller and Carnegie. However, this really does not take place until episode 2, but Carnegie does swear revenge on Rockefeller for causing his mentor’s business to fail.
2.) This section of the discussion is a hard one.
Especially when I read the testimonies, it had a feel of 9/11 to it. The dropping of the bodies, those who could not escape the flames of the top stories, to those who were buried without being identified. I know they are two different things, but the feel and the memory of watching it on the news in eight grade as it was happening lends to understanding the bystanders. Anyway, the standards that the industrial revolution had for sweat shops was horrible. Everything from the working hours, to the conditions they had to work in. The standards have gotten better for the most part depending on the job field you have entered in today. Yet, there is a whole different set of issues and not just the cleanness and safety policies that are big issues now. However, factories, companies, etc. all find ways to go around the rules put in place to help the people working in them. For example, my mom works in the post office as a mail carrier. Now, during Christmas time she had to pull almost seventy hours, working six to seven days a week. Her boss tried to not pay for the overtime that was clearly there by cutting the hours on the time sheets. Plus, the union, from my understanding, for the post office does not really help them because there really is no one to go above the head postal office manager in the building or that is the jest of what I have caught from my mother’s
rants.
However, I know that the example is not much in regards to a safe work environment; however, it shows some of the issues that are put on workers today by companies, factories, and organizations. So, we have gotten somewhat better in the safety and especially in the cleanness aspects of a work environment; yet, the rest is still a working progress that will unfortunately take time to solve.