Overview

Founder and first president of the New York Central Railroad, Erastus Corning rose from humble origins-he begin his working life at the age of thirteen as a clerk in a Troy, New York, hardware store-to become one of the wealthiest men of his time. In this skillfully written biography, Irene D. Neu traces Corning's the arc of his life and career as a merchant, manufacturer, railroad promoter, land speculator, financier, and politician-telling, at the same time, the story of American business in the mid-nineteenth century. Neu relates the significant events in Corning's life and addresses in considerable detail his many-faceted enterprises, including the circumstances of his loss of the New York Central to Cornelius Vanderbilt.

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9780801476457

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Reviews

An exceptionally fine monograph on the career of an important nineteenth-century businessman. . . . What emerges is the story of a man who promoted many enterprises that often stimulated or accelerated economic development, and with profit to himself. . . . Neu's book fills an important chapter in the economic and entrepreneurial history of the United States from Jackson through Lincoln. New York Historical Society Quarterly

An exceptionally fine monograph on the career of an important nineteenth-century businessman. . . . What emerges is the story of a man who promoted many enterprises that often stimulated or accelerated economic development, and with profit to himself. . . . Neu's book fills an important chapter in the economic and entrepreneurial history of the United States from Jackson through Lincoln. -New York Historical Society Quarterly

An exceptionally fine monograph on the career of an important nineteenth-century businessman... What emerges is the story of a man who promoted many enterprises that often stimulated or accelerated economic development, and with profit to himself... Neu's book fills an important chapter in the economic and entrepreneurial history of the United States from Jackson through Lincoln. -New York Historical Society Quarterly

Author Information

Irene D. Neu is Professor Emerita of History at Indiana University and coauthor, with George Rogers Taylor, of The American Railroad Network, 1861–1890.

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