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Reading paths
The Gilded Age builders
Oil, steel, railroads and banks: the people who built industrial America, and fought each other doing it.
Step 1
Ron Chernow
Start with Rockefeller and Standard Oil.
Step 2
Andrew Carnegie
Carnegie’s own account of his rise in steel.
Step 3
Les Standiford
Carnegie and Frick: a partnership that ended in a feud.
Step 4
TJ Stiles
Cornelius Vanderbilt, from ferries to railroads.
Step 5
Edward J. Renehan Jr
Jay Gould, the most hated financier of his day.
Step 6
Ron Chernow
The banking dynasty that sat behind many of these deals.
Step 7
Les Standiford
Henry Flagler takes a railroad across the sea to Key West.