Business Tycoons In Us

Business Tycoons In US "The Business of the United States is Business," a great man once said.

The United States has heralded around the globe for its incredible economic system. The growth of the United States started off small with minor discoveries and inventions, such as oil and electricity, and with those in place emergence of new technologies and innovations came underway. The railroads came about very slowly and became very popular. A man named Henry Bessemer came up with a way to make steel cheaply and efficiently (Bessemer Process). With the prices of steel dropping railroads were being built all across the nation.

Major business tycoons, such as John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie, took advantage of the demand for oil and steel and started their own companies and later developed a monopoly in their own area of business. New laws and business practices were also enforced. These topics will be addressed in the following pages.

ENERGY FROM OIL & ELECTRICITY Common in all industries was the consumption and high use of electricity. The United States strived to find a cheap and efficient source of electricity to power its companies.Oil and the invention of the dynamo greatly aided industries need for power. Edwin Drake (a railroad conductor) was the first to drill for oil. Edwin Drake made quick profits and many others followed his path. There were many uses for oil, which became very useful and cost-effective.

Oil was used to lubricate machinery parts and later became a major part in the internal combustion engine.This engine later made the emergence of automobile possible. Large-scale use of electricity was not fully tapped until about the mid 1800's. Michael Faraday and Joseph Henry invented an invention called the dynamo. The dynamo produced enough electricity to run factories from the use of steam, and water.

With electricity fully understood Thomas Edison began his work. Thomas Edison made more than a thousand different inventions in his lifetime. His work helped make the use of electricity more efficient and also contributed many major inventions.AMERICAN RAILROADS Colonel John Stevens first conceived the concept of constructing a railroad in the United States, in 1812.

He described his theories in a collection of works called "Documents tending to prove the superior advantages of railways and steam carriages over canal navigation." The earliest railroads constructed were horse drawn cars running on tracks, used for transporting freight. The first to be established and built was the Granite Railway of Massachusetts (1826), that ran approximately three miles. The first regular carrier of passengers and freight was the Baltimore and Ohio railroad, completed on February 28, 1827. It was not until Christmas Day, 1830, when the South Carolina Canal and Railroad Company completed the first mechanical passenger train, that day the modern railroad industry was born.

This industry would have a profound effect on the nation in the coming decades, often determining how an individual lived his life. By 1835, dozens of local railroad networks had been put into place.Each one of these tracks went no more than a few miles, but the true potential for this mode of transportation was finally being realized. With every passing year, the number of these railway systems grew incredibly. By 1850, over 9,000 miles of track had been lain. Along with the generating of railroads came increased standardization of the field.

An ideal locomotive was developed which served as the model for all subsequent trains. Various companies began to cooperate with one another, to both maximize profits and minimize expenditures.This interaction of various companies initiated the trend of combination, which would continue through the rest of the Nineteenth Century. In 1850, the New York Central Railroad Company was formed by the merging of a dozen small railroads between the Hudson River and Buffalo. Single companies had begun to extend their railway systems outside of the local domain. Between 1851 and 1857, the federal government issued land grants to Illinois to construct the Illinois Central railroad.

The government made the growth of one of the largest companies in the nation possible. With the Civil War, production of new railroads fell dramatically.At the same time, however, usage of this means of transportation increased greatly. By the conclusion of the war, the need for an even more diverse extension of railways was extremely apparent.

Soon after the war, the first transcontinental railroad was constructed. The Union Pacific Railroad Company started building from the east, while the Central Pacific began from the west. The two companies met at Promontory Point, Utah, on May 10, 1869.As they drove the Golden Spike uniting the two tracks, a new age was born. Slowly, the small railroad companies would go bankrupt or be overtaken by big businesses. Several more transcontinental railroads were built before the end of the century, all by large corporations.

Every decade brought increased standardization. In addition, labor unions were developed to protect the rights of the workers. As companies grew larger, they began to take over other related fields.Soon, large trusts were formed that controlled many aspects of both the economy and society. As more and more areas became controlled by the railroad industry, it became clear that regulation was impossible to avoid.

The standard gauge was then made and put into place. The standard gauge set a certain distance between the rails of the railroad track, which made it possible for all trains to share the same tracks. CORPORATIONS Many new businesses and currently large businesses were becoming corporations. A corporation is "a business chartered by a state and owned by shareholding investors.

" The stockholders give money to the company to buy a part of it.That money is later used to buy/ sell/ or produce goods. The stockholders then receive dividends (a portion of the profit) if the company is successful. A Corporation has three definitive benefits over any other types of proprietorships. The first is that a corporation can evoke grand amounts of capital by selling its stock to the shareholders. With the more money a corporation raises the better chances it gains to succeed and grow.

The second is that the stockholders have a means of protection called limited liability.This means that should the corporation fail and go into debt the stockholder is not held liable. The third is that a corporation is not troulbed with the death of owners. Their stock are then opened up on the market and bought up by others. This gives the corporations great stability. THOMAS ALVA EDISON Thomas Alva Edison is one of America's most famous inventors.

Edison saw huge change take place in his lifetime. He was responsible for making many of those changes occur. His inventions created and contributed to modern night-lights, movies, telephones, records and CDs. Edison was truly a genius.

Edison is most famous for his development of the first electric light bulb.When Edison was born, electricity had not been developed. By the time he died, entire cities were lit by electricity. Much of the credit for electricity goes to Edison. Some of his inventions were improvements on other inventions, like the telephone. Some of his inventions he deliberately tried to invent, like the light bulb and the movie projector.

But some inventions he stumbled upon, like the phonograph. Of all his inventions, Edison was most proud of the phonograph. Edison invented and improved upon things that transformed our world. Some things he invented by himself. Some things he invented with other people.Just about all his inventions are things we still use in some form today.

Throughout his life, Edison tried to invent things that everyone could use. Edison created the world's first "invention factory". He and his partners invented, built and shipped the product - all in the same complex. This was a new way to do business.

Today many businesses have copied Edison's invention factory design. A business friend once asked Edison about the secret to his success. Edison replied, "Genius is hard work, stick-to-itiveness, and common sense". But his "common sense" was very uncommon. More patents were issued to Edison than have been issued to any other single person in U.S.

history: 1,093. Edison was not the type of inventor we have seen on TV - hermit, genius, struggling alone in a garage or science lab. Teamwork was very important to his success. He surrounded himself with six or more assistants. Some were mechanics and some were electrical engineers.A person's background didn't matter, talent did.

Edison chose people he thought knew more about a subject than he did. Edison had a talent for motivating people and encouraging creativity. He encouraged everyone to write down ideas and diagrams. Good ideas were started b ...