Famous entrepreneurs of 19 century

John Morgan

The Monopolist Who Saved the American Economy

At the end of the 19th century, one of the most influential entrepreneurs in the world was John Pierpont Morgan - a cold calculating businessman, monopolist and speculator, while at the same time the savior of the American economy and philanthropist, who laid the foundation for the collections of many American museums - read more here Atomic habits PDF. Some explain his passion for finance by a tragic youth story: at 22, Morgan married a girl with tuberculosis, and after her imminent death he focused on business success.

He made the first big money on speculation in weapons and gold during the American Civil War (however, Morgan did not start from scratch: his father was a major banker). He soon began investing in the railway business and gained control over several industry-forming companies. In the 1880s, John Morgan became interested in the recent invention of Thomas Edison, brought electricity to his mansion, and eventually created the largest electrical engineering concern General Electric. The next market in which Morgan became a monopoly is the steel industry. In general, at the end of the 19th century, it was difficult to find an industry in which the financier did not invest, and his acquisitions and mergers were lost. Later, he saved the United States from the banking crisis of 1907, but this event already fell on the years of the Great Generation.

John Rockefeller

First dollar billionaire

John Rockefeller is called the first dollar billionaire: he founded a dynasty that is still one of the richest in the world. Rockefeller's name thundered in the press at the end of the 19th century thanks to the oil company Standard Oil. Rockefeller became interested in oil back in the 1860s, when friend and chemist Samuel Andrews told him about new ways of processing. By 1870, when Standard Oil appeared, Rockefeller and his partners already had a profitable company and an oil refinery.

Rockefeller was one of the first to realize that the success of the oil business lies in logistics. He negotiated with railway companies and paid for the transportation of oil several times less than competitors. The latter he put before a choice - either to join Standard Oil, or go broke. Rockefeller dumped, sought to stop supplies to other players and by 1880 had become a monopolist in the market, controlling 85–90% of enterprises. According to Intelligent investor PDF, after another decade, he had to split the companies, as required by law, but each of them increased revenue and became the progenitor of the current largest oil companies (ExxonMobil, Chevron, and others). However, since the 20th century, the oil market has developed without Rockefeller's participation: he retired and devoted forty years to playing golf and charity.

Milton Hershey

The king of chocolate in America

At the beginning of the 20th century, chocolate in the United States was a rare product delivered from Switzerland, but pastry chef Milton Hershey changed everything. For twenty years he was engaged in the production of sweets, and in 1900 he sold everything for the sake of a new dream. For several years, Hershey experimented and created the chocolate formula in his factory surrounded by dairy farms. When Hersheyʼs came out, the entrepreneur quickly became the country's top chocolate seller.

Milton Hershey is one of the first entrepreneurs to invest in the comfort and development of employees, which at the beginning of the 20th century was not at all as fashionable as it is now, as noted in Business model generation book PDF free download. Around the plant, he built a whole city with beautiful houses, a bank, a hotel, churches, shops. In addition to chocolate, the industrial school became an important matter in his life - Hershey himself received only four classes of education and wanted to prevent the children of the workers from repeating his path. Hershey bequeathed all his fortune to this school.

Henry Ford

Carmaker with in-line production

"A car for everyone" was the slogan of Henry Ford's company, which produced the first truly mass-produced car. He designed his first car in his spare time as an engineer, he was helped by like-minded people. It was 1896, and Henry Ford had yet to become the head of the Detroit auto company - and not do the job. After several failures with racing cars, Henry Ford found investors who supported his idea of ​​switching to mass car production.

There is a widespread belief that Henry Ford invented the conveyor belt. In fact, he perfected the invention of another American entrepreneur - Ransom Olds - and was the first to establish continuous production. Later, his system of organizing work was called "Fordism". Ford was one of the first to express the idea that workers should be well paid, then their qualifications will also increase. The first mass-produced Models A and N sold well, but the Model T became truly legendary - budget and quality. It came out in 1908, and since then, Ford Motor, controlled by descendants of Henry Ford, has remained one of the most budget carmakers.