The financial practices attending the construction of railroads in the late nineteenth century gave the industry a bad name. A small group of extremely wealthy entrepreneurs became known as robber barons because of their aggressive and frequently dishonest business practices. Cornelius Vanderbilt, James Fisk, and others built immense personal fortunes through railroad promotion and consolidation. However, the prince of the robber barons was Jay Gould. He was born in 1836 and raised on a farm in upstate New York. As a young man he briefly operated a tannery. In 1859, at the age of twenty-three, he moved to New York City, where he set himself up as a leather goods merchant. During the Civil War he began speculating in the securities of small railroads and quickly grew wealthy. Gould developed the fine art of buying rundown railroads, making improvements, and selling out at a profit, meanwhile using...