Cornelius Vanderbilt

Cornelius Vanderbilt was a very wealthy and successful man. But he had to work really hard to get where he wanted to be. At first, Vanderbilt was very successful in the steamboat business. But that quickly changed because new innovations were happening and there was a better mode of transportation so that intrigued him. He worked hard, and took lots of risks in order to become successful.

Vanderbilt when he was younger started helping his father with his steamboat business. So it was overall a family business that got him started for his future. When Vanderbilt was 16, he decided to buy his own little ship to get him started. That was when he became a ferryman. So as you can see, it started off slow for him at first, but he didn’t even know what was ahead for his future during that time. Vanderbilt kept going with what he was doing and soon because of his personality and how hard working he was, was given the nickname “Commodore”. He kept that name for a while. Now he started gaining a reputation and started to become slowly successful.

Of course Vanderbilt had competitors. But he didn’t worry much and he strategically figured out how to beat out his competitors with his steamboat business. He was pretty ruthless when it came to this. Vanderbilt would either buy the other companies out, become partners, or even shut down the other businesses. Around the time of the Civil War, He became the biggest shipping business. This was because of his hard work, but also his ruthless behavior to get the other competitors out of his worries.

It was great that he was becoming very famous and wealthy with his business, but an issue came up that could quite possibly threaten his business to be a success anymore. During this time, railroads were becoming the best mode of transportation. So that meant that Vanderbilt wouldn’t be as popular anymore because everyone wants to travel the best and efficient way. This wasn’t going to stop him. He was a hard worker right? Well Vanderbilt was more than that. He was a risk taker too. He decided to sell his WHOLE business to give railroads a shot for himself. Well that was the best decision he made. Vanderbilt started taking over this business and had his railroads everywhere for people to use. So instead of the “Commodore” he earned a new nickname for his new success. The King of the Northeast railroads was what Vanderbilt was known as now. That was the truth too. All of the Northeast had his railroads running throughout it.

Later on his wife passed away sadly. If that couldn’t get any worse, the son that he was planning on giving his business to, passed away as well. But, he still had his son Billy. Vanderbilt just thought that his other son would become more successful with his business. At his own death in 1877, Vanderbilt’s estate was worth around $100 million. That shows how successful he was in his lifetime. Even though he has that much wealth. He wasn’t extremely greedy. During Vanderbilt’s retirement, he decided to donate to charitable causes. Because of his achievements, he was able to provide an inheritance to his future generations.

Overall, this man was such a role model of diligence, hard work, and much more. Although he wasn’t perfect. Yes, a man that was very wealthy and successful was not perfect. No one is. Vanderbilt didn’t exactly treat his employees very nicely. He was more rough than nice to them. He was also that way with his competitors which is also understandable to an extent. But even though he did that, Vanderbilt is still remembered today for all his success and showed that if you work hard, you can get to your goal.