A01=John Franch
American history
Andrew Carnegie
Author_John Franch
biography
capitalism
Category=DNB
Category=DNBH
Category=KNG
Charles Tyson Yerkes
Chicago
city
entrepreneur
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_business-finance-law
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
financial
Frank Cowperwood
history
Illinois
impression
J.P. Morgan
John D. Rockefeller
laissez-faire
London Underground
Loop Elevate
Loop Elevated
magnate
million
narrative
nineteenth-century
notorious
observatory
philanthropy
press
prosperity
protagonist
public
public figure
public works
streetcar
The Financier
The Stoic
The Titan
Theodore Dreiser
transaction
Trilogy of Desire
University of Chicago
world
Product details
- ISBN 9780252075179
- Weight: 626g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 10 Jan 2008
- Publisher: University of Illinois Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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Robber Baron is the first biography of the streetcar magnate Charles Tyson Yerkes (1837-1905), who stands alongside J.P. Morgan and Andrew Carnegie as one of the most colorful and controversial public figures in Gilded Age America. John Franch draws upon every available source to tell the story of the man who was the mastermind behind Chicago's Loop Elevated and the London Underground, the namesake of the University of Chicago's observatory, and the inspiration for Frank Cowperwood, the ruthless protagonist of Theodore Dreiser's Trilogy of Desire: The Financier, The Titan, and The Stoic. Despite various philanthropic efforts, Yerkes and his unscrupulous tactics were despised by the press and public, and he left Chicago a bitter man. While Yerkes's enduring public works testify to his success and desire to leave a lasting impression on his world, Robber Baron also uncovers the cost of this boundless ambition.
John Franch is coauthor of An Illini Place: Building the University of Illinois Campus.
