Biographical profile of Jay Gould, railroad tycoon and baron of Wall Street. Jay Gould, one of the richest and most hated men in America in the 1880s, was an elusive, slippery character, difficult to assess and more difficult to understand. The secretive tycoon was brilliant and ruthless, perhaps the quintessential "robber baron." In a fiery sermon delivered a week after Gould's death, the Rev. G. Inglehart said: "Gould, with his 70 millions, was one of the colossal failures of our time. He was a purely selfish man. His greed consumed his charity. He was like death and hell -- gathering in all, giving back nothing." Honed by a frenzied media to despise Gould, most Americans shared this view.
These views were overly simplistic. Coming from strong Yankee roots, he was not the Shylock portrayed in the papers, nor the “complex Jew,” as Henry Adams called him. On the contrary, he was a descendant of New England puritans, a brilliant man who valued time with his family as much as the financial wars in which he was engaged with Cornelius Vanderbilt, Daniel Drew and others to wrestle control of the Erie Railroad, to corner the American gold market and to ultimately end with control of more than 15% of the nation's rails including Union Pacific. Award-winning author and syndicated columnist Daniel Alef, who has written more than 300 biographical profiles of America’s greatest tycoons, brings out the story of Gould and his remarkable life of ups, downs and achievements.
[5,263-word Titans of Fortune enhanced ebook article with timeline, bibliography and video links].
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