In the time of the Robber Barons, one man, Andrew Carnegie, was the closest associated with Vertical Integration. To ensure that Carnegie Steel made the maximum amount of profits, he owned the trains, ships, iron ore fields, and coal fields for his tremendous steel works.
Carnegie later gave money to communities around the world for libraries. As of October, 2018, there are 17 Carnegie libraries in Oregon communities---that is, the libraries are still housed in the buildings that Carnegie helped to pay for. Salem, Oregon received money from the Carnegie library grants, which helped to pay for half of our library (the community had to pay the rest).
Andrew Carnegie was just one of the Robber Barons---who liked to be called Captains of Industry, instead. The names Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan, Vanderbilt are other famous families of this era. As an introduction to this era, students viewed a shortened version of the recent Saturday Night Live skit, where Abraham Parnassus, an oil baron, teaches the students to Crush their Enemies during Career Day. I was a bit surprised to hear the same words used in the brief Rockefeller film clip the students viewed as we were taking notes. Some of the students did a pretty good imitation of Mr. Parnassus words of advice, CRUSH your ENEMIES, when he described how he got ahead in the oil industry.
