Barons of Robbington

Wall Street with less Street and more Walls

            The tycoons of oil, rail, steel, and coal made more money in a set amount of time than any other when you include inflation to the current date.  In today's dollars, Rockefeller alone made roughly twice as much as any other person in the world.  These rulers of capital were not known for their well treatment of workers, in fact, they were downright horrible.  The conditions, conditions that allowed for maximum profit, did not allow for safety or even the survival of the workers in some cases.  While the notion of the chance to work, and the opportunity for income is a welcome idea to the worker, the facts are that these wages were subsistence wages, meaning that the income you made was enough to survive that day, in the building they gave to live in.  These workhouses sometimes charged the workers more than they made, effectively making them indentured servants unable to pay back the money, no matter how much they worked.  Even if this wasn't the case in areas, the wages did not meet the idea of "the American dream".  No entry level worker could build a home to live in, or even perhaps feed his family, on his 60-100 a week schedule.  It was an atrocity to such things, and these were the ways to make a fortune, and still are.