The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt
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The Commodore himself remains. His statue still stands at the city gate, gazing down Park Avenue South from the front of Grand Central Terminal. In 1929, the railroad moved it from the top of the St. John's Park Freight Depot, which was slated for destruction, to its current location. The original Grand Central Depot had been rebuilt, then destroyed, and replaced in 1913 by the railroad palace that remains in use to this day. Trains rumble out of it, through the Park Avenue tunnel that dates to the Fourth Avenue Improvement, along the curving track around the Harlem River that Vanderbilt originally built as the Spuyten Duyvil Railroad.14 It is fitting that he should stand guard over the infrastructure he created, more grand and more central than it was even in his own time, so vitally important to the city that rose to greatness under his influence. His corporation has disappeared; his plans for a dynasty ultimately failed; but, as the directors of his railroads observed, “The work will go on, though the master workman is gone.”
* The New York Times, July 15, 2007, named Vanderbilt the second-wealthiest man in American history, relative to the size of the economy. Statistics for the nineteenth-century economy as a whole, however, are unreliable.
Acknowledgments
Shortly after 2:30 p.m. on October 15, 2003, I hurried my teenage niece and nephew into the Whitehall Terminal of the Staten Island Ferry. They had come to visit me in New York, where I had lived since 1986, and I thought we could do no better on their first day in town than to take the ferry. We just missed the 2:30 sailing, and had to wait half an hour to board the Andrew J. Barberi. Twenty minutes after we boarded, the Barberi smashed into a service pier on Staten Island. Now I had to shoo my niece and nephew out of the way of a mob of panicking commuters who were racing back from the bow. We were on the upper deck, and saw no carnage; it was not until we returned to Manhattan that we realized it had been a catastrophe, one that eventually cost the lives of eleven passengers. It was the deadliest transit accident in New York in more than a century.
From the moment of impact, I knew we had been caught in a historic event. As my nephew and I handed out life jackets—and as I scanned the deck to see if the Barberi was listing, and in danger of sinking—I thought to myself, I've studied ferry disasters; now I'm in one. We returned to Whitehall on the last ferry to run that day, where we gave our accounts to a crowd of reporters. It was peculiar to find myself delivering the sort of information I was consuming to write this book.
I had been at work on it for more than a year already, and was struck by the coincidence that I was writing a biography of the man who founded the Staten Island Ferry.* The 150 or so years between my subject and me matter far more, however. It is a gulf that requires immense effort to span, even in the imagination. Matters conscious and unconscious—grand political issues, meanings of words, social expectations, even the smell of the air—all must be reconstructed, but never can be completely. It is a literary and historical endeavor that cannot be carried out alone.
This book was the product of endless assistance: from archivists who ultimately hold the secrets, in disassembled pieces; from the scholars who created the historiographical context and interpretive framework; from my editor and fellow writers who offered their insights; from institutions that gave financial and research support; and from family and friends, who offered not only emotional and material aid, but have shaped my personal understanding of humanity, the ultimate resource for any biographer.
First I must thank my wife, Jessica Stiles, who has supported and inspired me. Our meeting, long engagement, move to California, wedding, honeymoon, move to San Francisco, and birth of our first child all fall entirely within the brackets of my work on this book. I'm not sure she knew what she was in for. Her love, creativity, sensitivity, hard work, and fine talent as a writer have made it possible for me to complete this book, and I am grateful.
I must also thank the rest of my family, who have supported me unstintingly I am grateful to my parents, Dr. Clifford and Carol Stiles, who always encouraged my interests, and even endured my decision to forgo an academic career after I had devoted years to graduate school. They have always been there for me. I must thank my sister Colleen Stiles for her creative assistance, and her son and daughter, Keegan and Kevyn Stokes, who survived the Andrew J. Barberi with me in 2003.
I include my wife's clans in my definition of family, and they offered abundant help before and after our move to California. I should single out my brothers-in-law Patrick and Kevin McKenna and sister-in-law Elizabeth McKenna, their parents, Susan and Michael McKenna, and my wife's grandparents, Jack and Ruth Kahoun. I owe a special debt to my grand-mother-in-law, Elizabeth Frank, and her family, who let Jessica and me live for a year in the Frank home of the past sixty years, a house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, where I wrote Part Two of this book. Friends and relatives of friends helped as well, especially Christina Wertz and Jeffrey Lerner, Kiki and Alex Beam, Woody Gilmartin, and Philip and Kathleen Brady. To all, thank you.
In acknowledging professional colleagues, I should begin with my editor, Jonathan Segal of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. It is a great comfort to know that he won't publish a manuscript from me unless it's the best that I can make it. He sent this one back to me more than once for more work, and he was right to do so. I have profound respect for his literary judgment, not to mention gratitude for all he has done for me, and I'm honored to be on his list of authors. My agent, Jill Grinberg, brings an equal level of dedication to her work. She has remained a steadfast believer in my ability—or, at least, my potential—and has labored skillfully and hard to advance my career. I also have to thank Kirsten Wolf, another member of Jill Grinberg Literary Management, who has done so much to help me in the final year of work on this book.
There are a number of writers and historians who have given me their thoughts about this manuscript as it has progressed. David Hochfelder forwarded very useful details from the Western Union letterbooks. James McPherson, Richard Maxwell Brown, and Brenda Maddox supported my efforts to obtain a fellowship to support my work on this book (discussed below), and they have my deep gratitude. The late George Plimpton supported my application as well. We became acquainted with each other through my previous book, in which Plimpton's great-grandfather Adelbert Ames plays an important role, and I consider myself fortunate to have known him, however narrowly and briefly. My heartfelt thanks are due to Edward Countryman, Andrew Burstein, and Robert E. May, who commented on parts of various drafts. I must single out Joyce Appleby Maury Klein, and Richard R. John for special thanks for looking over the entire manuscript. Each of them offered factual corrections, perceptive comments on my writing, and insightful criticism of my interpretations. To have distinguished historians labor through an uncut, unedited manuscript is a much-appreciated gift. I have benefited enormously from all the comments I have received; all failings of this book, however, are mine alone.
I believe very strongly in conducting my research myself. Unfortunately, I was forced to hire researchers for work at the Detroit Public Library and the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. I must thank Ruth McMahon and Kristina Eden, respectively, for their fine work on my behalf there. They provided me with abundant material, though any oversight is my responsibility alone. I must also thank Frank Mauran of Providence, Rhode Island, who made available information from the ledger book of his ancestor, Oroondates Mauran. I wish to thank in particular Cristine Gonzalez, who assisted me as part of her Hertog Research Fellowship at Columbia University's School of the Arts. I never gave her much responsibility, I'm afraid, though she and her husband, Landon Hall, tracked down sources at the New-York Historical Society and photocopied them for me, and found valuable leads that I followed up. I was especially grateful for their labors after I arrived on the far side of the continent, copies in hand. I am indebted to the School of the Arts for the honor of working with a Hertog Fellow, especially one so talented.
Seemingly numberless archivists have assisted me generously and capably. I apologize for listing so many
only by institution. My thanks go out to the staffs of the following, in no particular order: the California Historical Society; the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley; the Huntington Library; the Newberry Library; the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress; the National Archives in Washington, D.C., College Park, Maryland, and New York, New York; the Milton R. Perkins Library, Duke University; Department of Special Collections, University Libraries, Wichita State University; Special Collections, Jean and Alexander Heard Library, Vanderbilt University; the American Antiquarian Society; the Watkinson Library, Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut; the Baker Library, Harvard Business School; Carl A. Kroch Library, Cornell University; the Special Collections Research Center, Morris Library, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, Ill.; Special Collections, University Libraries, University of Rhode Island; the Albany Institute of History and Art; the New York State Library; the Rockefeller Center Archives; the New York Municipal Archives; the New-York Historical Society; and the various libraries of Columbia University.
I must single out a few archivists who went above and beyond to help me as I spent weeks or months in their collections. Rebecca Rego Barry, late of Special Collections at Drew University enthusiastically assisted me as I took the New Jersey Transit train to Madison, N.J., for so many snowy weeks in the winter of 2002–03. Joseph Van Nostrand and Bruce Abrams stand guard over the historical treasure trove of the Old Records Division of the New York County Clerk's Office, assisted by David Brantley Robert Soenarie, Eileen McAleavey, and Annette Joseph. I would like to think we became friends as well as colleagues over the course of many months, as they guided me through the priceless collection of papers in their keeping. Bruce Adams skillfully indexed this book.
I must conclude by singling out one institution in particular, which combined every form of assistance possible—financial, editorial, literary, historical, archival, emotional, even architectural. It is the New York Public Library (NYPL). I not only conducted years of research in the main research library on Fifth Avenue and Forty-second Street, I wrote much of the book there, in the Allen Room and the Center for Scholars and Writers (see below). It is one of America's great cultural institutions, and it is well served by its highly professional staff. I do a disservice to many by naming only a few, but I would like to single out, for their generous personal assistance, Wayne Furman of the Office of Special Collections (and thoughtful keeper of the Allen Room); Maira Liriano, Assistant Chief Librarian and Kate Cordes Librarian of the Milstein Division of United States History, Local History, and Genealogy; Alice C. Hudson, Chief of the Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division; William Stingone, Charles J. Liebman Curator of Manuscripts in the Manuscripts and Archives Division; Kristin McDonough, Director of the Science, Industry, and Business Library; and David Ferriero, the Andrew W. Mellon Director and Chief Public Executive of the Research Libraries.
I wish to extend my special thanks to the NYPL's Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers. I could not have completed this book without the financial assistance of a fellowship at the center, 2004–05. For this award, I am grateful also to the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, which gave me the honor of being the first Gilder Lehrman Fellow in American History at the center. The center's staff, especially Pamela Leo and Adriana Nova, were exceptionally helpful. I am deeply indebted to Jean Strouse, the John and Sue Ann Weinberg Director of the center. A superb biographer, she both fostered a productive and collegial environment and offered specific advice on the early chapters of my manuscript. Finally, I thank my classmates of 2004–05. I hope they excuse me for singling out just a few whose insights, advice, or assistance I found particularly helpful: Hermione Lee, Jennifer Egan, Nathan Englander, Colum McCann, and Lisandro Perez. I admire them—and the other fellows of that year—for their character as much as their intellectual and artistic gifts.
T. J. S.
* The service Cornelius Vanderbilt started just before the Civil War to run in conjunction with the Staten Island Railroad, and later sold to the railway, is the lineal ancestor of today's ferry.
Bibliographical Essay
Cornelius Vanderbilt's life is truly an epic one. In length of activity, scope of action, and centrality to significant events, it looms larger than most others, at the very least. Unfortunately, his life and its impact have received little intensive study. The image of the Commodore that lingers in American memory is largely the creation of rumors reported as fact by the press, as well as tales told by outright fabulists, from his own time down to the present. I have found new information about every aspect of Vanderbilt's life (if only through sheer drudgery). Under the circumstances, I believe it is worthwhile to discuss previous biographies and the primary sources on which I have based my account. (This book was written before the 2008 financial crisis, and was not changed afterward.)
First, I should describe the method I have used to write this biography. I began by reading existing biographies and studies of the topics relevant to Vanderbilt's life, and combed through their notes to compile an initial list of primary sources. I examined those sources, and searched archival catalogs and online digitized collections, including the Proquest historical newspaper database and archives of congressional documents. (I examined every article obtainable through a Proquest search for “Vanderbilt” between 1810 and 1879, among many other searches—and learned just how much property was for sale on Brooklyn's Vanderbilt Avenue.) I visited archives, made photocopies and took notes, and saved thousands of electronic files. I also scrolled through microfilm and sifted through manuscript collections to search far beyond the specific citations on my list. (I surveyed every issue of Railroad Gazette for Vanderbilt's lifetime in the original printed form, for example.) I then created databases of my own, with an entry for notes and quotes from each relevant source, and wrote the initial draft of each chapter largely from the primary sources. I then went through the secondary sources again and revised my manuscript, incorporating other historians' information and interpretations (when not already cited in the text).
Just as important as the discovery of sources, of course, is their interpretation. It is famously said that the past is a foreign country; unfortunately it is not always foreign enough. Nineteenth-century Americans spoke the same language as anyone who is now reading this sentence, but their vocabulary is deceptive in its familiarity. They imbued words with meanings that have long since disappeared, and they used expressions that, while familiar to historians, were built into a mental architecture that strikes the twenty-first-century mind as alien, even unsustainable. Terms such as “character,” “monopoly,” “competition,” “stock watering,” “par value,” “intrinsic value,” even “cash” must be understood in their original context, for they reflected a view of the world that is counterintuitive to us now and was constantly in dispute at the time. I have done my best to map this changing mental landscape over a rather long distance; authorities on any of the many periods covered here undoubtedly will find fault, and probably with cause. My motto is to research in terror, write with confidence, and publish with humility: terror, lest something escape me; confidence, lest the narrative seem weak and uncertain; and humility because some sources and interpretations, not to mention perfect literary grace, always lie beyond the grasp of any writer.
Finally, I submitted drafts of my manuscript to some very generous academic historians. They include Joyce Appleby Edward Countryman, Andrew Burstein, Robert E. May, Richard R. John, and Maury Klein. I owe them a great debt for correcting factual errors and misinterpretations, pointing out ideas I had not considered, and recommending further reading. But this book's failings are mine alone.
Cornelius Vanderbilt has not been well served by his biographers. Early writers based their works on—well, I don't know what. The newspapers freely embellished the rumors about Vanderbilt's life that came their way, as did the most influential account written before his death, by James Par-ton's Famous Americans
of Recent Times (1867). This book is most useful as a description of how he was seen, not how he lived. Nine years after Vanderbilt's death, William A. Croffut published the lightweight volume The Vanderbilts and the Story of their Fortune (1886). This work has some value, for Croffut spoke to Charles F. Deems, William H. Vanderbilt's Staten Island field hands, and others for their firsthand accounts, but it is in no sense a scholarly work, and can best be used to give shading to accounts from solid sources.
The twentieth century brought only a small improvement. In 1927, novelist Arthur D. H. Smith published the heavily fictionalized Commodore Vanderbilt: An Epic of American Achievement, followed in 1941 by Wayne Andrews's Vanderbilt Legend: The Story of the Vanderbilt Family. Andrews offered endnotes, a rarity in books about Vanderbilt, though he based his work almost entirely on press accounts. As such, its main value is as a guide to newspaper stories about the Commodore.
In 1942 came the most important biography of Vanderbilt to date: Wheaton J. Lane's Commodore Vanderbilt: An Epic of the Steam Age. Lane, an authority on the history of transportation, adopted a serious approach to his subject, focusing overwhelmingly on his business career. He acquired access to business records and tracked down many examples of the relative handful of Vanderbilt's surviving letters. As a business historian, he wrote with none of the angry tone that emerged out of the populist and radical movements of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries—perhaps best exemplified by Gustavus Myers's History of the Great American Fortunes (1910), and Matthew Josephson's The Robber Barons: The Great American Capitalists, 1861–1901 (1934). Lane placed Vanderbilt's business operations in their contemporary context, and revealed much about his historical significance.