Unlike James, however, Vanderbilt was no crook. He was wily and imperious, no doubt. But for a man whose worth at the time of his death in 1877 was estimated at $100 million, he was singularly straightforward. In Stiles's view, Vanderbilt embodied confidence but was in no way a con man.
Vanderbilt's career was built on transportation and mirrored its evolution. He began with steamboats before the War of 1812 and ended in his 80s as head of New York Central, the nation's largest railroad system and the template for the modern corporation. Stiles depicts Vanderbilt's career as the intersection of politics and commerce, public and private. Vanderbilt, honest entrepreneur, frequently battled corruption.
By intertwining Vanderbilt's (and the country's) economic development with information and commentary on the social and political fabric of his day, Stiles has painted a full-bodied, nuanced picture of the man. It can be hard to follow. Readers must guard against losing track of the many characters, particularly relatives, who wandered in and out of Vanderbilt's life. It's also challenging to keep score of Vanderbilt's alliances and deals, particularly the ones he struck during Reconstruction, when he effectively invented the modern railroad system.
Until the 1840s, when Vanderbilt cemented his hold on the nascent steamboat industry, "the social, political, and economic elite had been one and the same; power and influence had gone together with social standing and family prestige," Stiles writes. "The democratization of politics and the unleashing of the market, however, had destroyed the functional purpose of social standing."
