The Men Who Built America: Season 1, Episode 1

1. -

2. Just five days after the end of the Civil War,

3. President Abraham Lincoln is the final

4. of the six hundred thousand deaths

5. in America's bloodiest conflict.

6. The country is divided, and the world looks

7. at American democracy as a failed experiment.

8. But what most don't realize is that a new era has dawned.

9. The nation is entering an age of advancement,

10. and from the void left by the death of perhaps

11. the greatest statesman we will ever know,

12. a new breed of leader will emerge.

13. The Rockefellers, the Fords,

14. the Carnegies, were the first generation

15. of what we know as now the entrepreneurial rock stars,

16. or what are today are the Buffets,

17. and the Jobs, and the Gates.

18. They were the ones that set the standard for the American dream.

19. They owned a new frontier— literally and figuratively—

20. of who we are as a culture.

21. Men of insight, innovation,

22. and ingenuity, the likes of which the world

23. has never seen, and over the next five decades,

24. this small group will change history,

25. propelling the United States of America to greatness.

26. These were great men

27. with a vision that nobody else had.

28. And that's why in the last century—

29. that fifty year period— we built the world.

30. -

31. For the first time in the country's

32. short existence, the man most capable

33. of leading America is not a politician.

34. He's a self-made man, who, through sheer force of will,

35. turned a poor upbringing on the docks

36. of New York Harbor, into an empire.

37. At sixteen, Cornelius Vanderbilt buys

38. a small ferry boat with a one hundred dollar loan.

39. He quickly earns a reputation as a cutthroat businessman,

40. willing to use any means necessary to get ahead.

41. Back then, it was just pure competition.

42. My brain against your brain.

43. My effort against your effort.

44. You just competed.

45. That's the way they looked at business.

46. It was the Wild, Wild West,

47. and by hook or crook, it was just win or lose,

48. and the best win.

49. He was a tough guy.

50. Getting into scraps with other men,

51. beating the hell out of them and knocking them unconscious.

52. That competitive streak, and that toughness,

53. very much defined his character.

54. His single ferry soon becomes

55. a fleet of ships, transporting goods and passengers

56. to every corner of the growing country.

57. Vanderbilt will become so synonymous with shipping

58. that his nickname becomes "the Commodore".

59. I think Vanderbilt recognized

60. that what was going to be important is transporting goods

61. from one place to another.

62. And he had this idea that required infrastructure,

63. and not infrastructure the government was going to provide,

64. but that he was going to provide.

65. Over the next forty years,

66. Vanderbilt builds the largest shipping empire in the world.

67. Then, at the peak of his power,

68. just before the Civil War, he does the unthinkable.

69. Work is under way on the first Transcontinental Railroad,

70. and the Commodore realizes

71. that its completion will transform America,

72. slashing cross-country travel time by months.

73. H.W. Railroads were absolutely liberating,

74. because the rail roads allowed cheap

75. and efficient transportation

76. from one corner of America to another.

77. Vanderbilt sees his future.

78. He sells all of his ships and invests

79. everything he has in rail roads.

80. You talk about seeing around corners

81. as an element of success.

82. That's what differentiates a good leader.

83. Not many people have it.

84. Not many people can predict that corner.

85. That is a characteristic of great leaders.

86. His decision to invest heavily in rail pays off.

87. By the end of the war, Vanderbilt

88. is the richest man in America,

89. with a net worth of over sixty-eight million dollars,

90. the equivalent of seventy-five billion today.

91. But all that money can't buy his escape

92. from the war's devastation.

93. In the wake of the Civil War,

94. a country mourns publicly, while Vanderbilt does so privately.

95. The first card is the past,

96. the second, the present, and the third is the future.

97. There has been an unexpected loss.

98. Someone close to you.

99. My son. George.

100. He died in the war.

101. What about the future?

102. The chariot.

103. There will be a war.

104. The war's over.

105. No. Your war is about to begin.

106. Hey-

107. Watch it, man!

108. Tormented by the loss of his favorite son,

109. Vanderbilt's empire is more vulnerable than ever before.

110. J.S. For Vanderbilt, this is a great tragedy.

111. He had one son who had that same sense

112. of physical strength and ability,

113. and he had died when he was still quite young.

114. It was deeply troubling for the Commodore.

115. For years, Vanderbilt groomed George

116. to take over the family business.

117. Now, the Commodore is forced to rely

118. on his less accomplished son, William.

119. I'm making you operations director

120. of the Hudson Railroad.

121. Vanderbilt places William in the midst

122. of negotiations with the owners of a rival rail road.

123. So name your price.

124. If you give us your freight, year round,

125. we will give you the privilege of allowing your passengers

126. access into Manhattan for two hundred thousand.

127. That privilege is not worth two hundred thousand.

128. Then let us settle on one hundred thousand?

129. I believe that to be a fair and generous offer.

130. I'm not really interested in your generosity.

131. I'm only interested in getting the best deal

132. for my shareholders.

133. And that does not include handing

134. over one hundred thousand dollars, or even one dollar.

135. My father wants only what he believes is right.

136. The trouble is, your father doesn't know what is right.

137. The old man should be put out to pasture.

138. The message is clear.

139. The competition no longer sees Vanderbilt as a man to fear.

140. People are always rooting

141. for very successful people to fail.

142. The day people are not taking shots at you means

143. you're not on top anymore.

144. But where they see weakness,

145. the Commodore sees an opportunity

146. to assert his dominance,

147. and teach William what it means to be a Vanderbilt.

148. If they want a war,

149. I'll give them a war.

150. Vanderbilt owns the only rail bridge

151. into New York City.

152. It's the gateway to the country's largest port,

153. supplying the entire continent.

154. Vanderbilt knows this is the hammer he needs to beat

155. his rivals into submission.

156. Sit down.

157. I want you to close the Albany Bridge.

158. Without the bridge,

159. every other rail road is shut out of New York City.

160. J.S. Vanderbilt, in essence,

161. single-handedly erected a blockade

162. around the nation's largest city, cutting it off

163. from contact with the rest of the country.

164. He was now asserting his dominance.

165. Ladies and gentlemen,

166. this train will not be going any farther!

167. We're gonna watch them bleed.

168. The Civil War has left America in ruins.

169. For the first time in its history,

170. the nation must rebuild.

171. Over fifty-thousand miles of rail road track

172. have transformed the country.

173. "Commodore" Cornelius Vanderbilt grew up poor,

174. but has created a rail road empire,

175. making him the richest man in the country.

176. At 72, he's thirty years past the average life expectancy,

177. and his competitors see him as weak.

178. It's a mistake they'll come to regret.

179. Locked in a battle for control of the rail lines

180. east of the Mississippi,

181. the Commodore is holding nothing back.

182. I want you to close the Albany Bridge.

183. We're gonna watch them bleed.

184. Vanderbilt controls the only bridge

185. into New York City, America's busiest port.

186. Seizing an opportunity, he sets up a blockade.

187. -

188. This train will not be going any farther!

189. Shutting the bridge leaves millions of pounds

190. of cargo unable to reach the rest of the country,

191. and slowly bleeds his competitors dry.

192. Before their stock is worthless,

193. the presidents of the rival rail road

194. try to sell all their shares.

195. Word quickly reaches Wall Street,

196. triggering a massive sell-off.

197. Come on, put some money in that. Come on.

198. New York Central shares are dropping fast.

199. How low?

200. $20 a share.

201. Buy everything you can.

202. T.J. Vanderbilt was buying all of that stock

203. that suddenly flooded the market at rock-bottom prices.

204. Three aces.

205. Ooh, that's good.

206. In just days, Vanderbilt takes control

207. of the rival rail road, creating the largest

208. single rail company in America.

209. J.S. The New York Central rail road

210. became the centerpiece of his empire,

211. and it came to him as the sudden result

212. of a skillfully executed campaign to get revenge.

213. Railroads soon criss-cross America,

214. tying together the country in a way

215. that just fifteen years earlier was unimaginable,

216. and providing over 180,000 jobs.

217. Laying tracks becomes America's engine

218. for unprecedented growth.

219. H.W. Railroads allowed the industrial economy

220. to boom in ways that it couldn't have before.

221. One advance after the other,

222. which essentially was led by the rail roads,

223. largely because there was a need to close the gap

224. between those east of the Mississippi

225. and those on the West Coast.

226. Vanderbilt has made himself

227. the undisputed king of rail roads.

228. And now, he wants the world to know it.

229. He envisions a monument that will symbolize

230. his immense power.

231. Work will begin on building a new station

232. that will bring together the three rail roads:

233. the Harlem, the Hudson, and the Central.

234. It shall be in the heart of New York,

235. and be called the Grand Central Depot.

236. Thousands of workers labor

237. over the next two years, on the most ambitious

238. urban construction project America has ever seen.

239. Grand Central is the biggest building

240. in all of New York City, and the biggest train station

241. in the country, covering some twenty-two acres.

242. T.J. This enormous building towered

243. over every other building in New York at the time.

244. And it was a physical symbol of the size and power

245. of Vanderbilt's rail road empire.

246. Its importance as a physical symbol,

247. as a physical capital of his empire,

248. cannot be underestimated.

249. And it still stamps New York's geography to this day.

250. Vanderbilt may be on top of the world,

251. but his blind ambition will soon make him

252. vulnerable to a challenge coming

253. from the most unlikely pair imaginable.

254. To Vanderbilt's money!

255. The growth of the rail roads thrusts

256. America into the biggest building expansion

257. the country has ever seen, led by a new breed of leader.

258. The story of America

259. isn't just the story of the patriots

260. that helped build the democracy.

261. The reason the United States is a leading economy

262. in the world is because of the work

263. of entrepreneurs who created entire industries

264. that propelled the United States to be the leader

265. of the free world.

266. One man, Cornelius Vanderbilt,

267. through brute force and intimidation,

268. has made himself the undisputed king of the rail roads.

269. He now owns forty percent of America's train lines.

270. But he wants them all.

271. To me, it's always "What's next?"

272. and I think that's what drives most very successful people.

273. It's never about the money.

274. I mean, that's a way of keeping score.

275. It's about achievement, and it's about winning a game,

276. and it's about upping the ante.

277. Chicago is America's fastest growing city.

278. The line connecting it to New York

279. is the most traveled and valuable in all the world.

280. And it's not Vanderbilt's.

281. To make his empire complete,

282. he must gain control of the Erie Line.

283. The Erie was one of the relatively early publicly

284. traded corporations.

285. Vanderbilt had the advantage

286. of millions and millions of dollars.

287. Deep pockets are always an advantage

288. when you're trying to gain control of a corporation.

289. Vanderbilt instructs his agents

290. to buy up as much stock as possible...

291. ' Buying Erie! Buying Erie!

292. demanding control of the company

293. by the end of the week.

294. Erie at forty-five!

295. It's a vintage Vanderbilt move—

296. one he pioneered—known today as a "hostile takeover".

297. Erie, fifty!

298. But his attempt will be thwarted

299. by an even more ingenious idea cooked up by two unknowns:

300. Jay Gould and Jim Fisk.

301. All right.

302. The mistake that the Erie Board have made is

303. that they have telegraphed where they need to expand

304. without securing the land first.

305. Gould and Fisk are stuck

306. in middle-management at the Erie.

307. But they represent the new America that Vanderbilt

308. is helping to create.

309. One of self-made men with ruthless ambition.

310. And after years of watching the Commodore

311. dominate, they're eager to build their own empire.

312. They recognize Vanderbilt's plan

313. to buy the line, and see the opportunity

314. they've been waiting for.

315. Competition, I think,

316. it's good for the system, and it's really, I think,

317. what most businesses is about,

318. is doing a better job, and out-hustling your competitors.

319. Gould and Fisk begin printing

320. new shares of stock,

321. using a printing press

322. they set up in the basement of the Erie offices.

323. Each share they print dilutes Vanderbilt's stake

324. in the company, and they print over one hundred thousand.

325. H.W. There was some fine print in one of the clauses

326. of the Erie's charter that allowed

327. the board of directors to issue new stock,

328. unbeknownst to the shareholders.

329. Go.

330. H.W. And so, the more shares that Vanderbilt

331. bought, the more he had to buy in order to approach

332. that magic majority.

333. Their plan is known as "watering down stock".

334. Highly illegal today, at the time,

335. it had never been imagined.

336. Its simplicity is brilliant.

337. And Wall Street is never the same.

338. The only rule was there were no rules.

339. Whatever it took to put your competition

340. out of business, they were gonna try to do it.

341. Unaware, Vanderbilt continues to buy.

342. Think of the look on his face.

343. Oh, God, I wish I could be a fly on that wall.

344. The freshly printed shares

345. are hand-delivered to Vanderbilt.

346. Here are the Erie shares.

347. I assume we control the company now.

348. - A toast! - A toast.

349. To money!

350. To Vanderbilt's money!

351. Vanderbilt has bought seven million dollars

352. of watered-down stock from Gould and Fisk.

353. Today, worth over one billion dollars.

354. Vanderbilt has been underestimated before,

355. but if you come at the king,

356. you shouldn't expect to win.

357. The greatest growth explosion

358. in America's short life is underway.

359. Rail lines now connect huge expanses of the country.

360. Controlling them means having power

361. that just five years earlier was unimaginable.

362. Many are staking their claim.

363. I think there are people

364. in every generation that have a vision that, um,

365. transcends their moment and their time.

366. "Commodore" Cornelius Vanderbilt owns

367. more miles of rail than anyone in the world.

368. But like all men of power, he faces constant challenges.

369. Competition gets very aggressive.

370. People have no idea how aggressive it is.

371. And sometimes, you don't even hear it,

372. because what goes on behind your back

373. is not a pretty picture.

374. At the height of his power,

375. Vanderbilt is outsmarted by a pair of unknowns.

376. To Vanderbilt's money!

377. Jay Gould and Jim Fisk have fleeced

378. the Commodore out of millions.

379. And they want the world to know it.

380. Thank you, don't mind if I do.

381. Now, it is no secret what Vanderbilt

382. has been trying to do.

383. He owns more rail roads than anybody else.

384. But Gould and me, we have struck a blow

385. for the little guy.

386. Now, sure, he may be rich, and sure,

387. he may be powerful, but somebody had to stand up

388. to the old bastard.

389. T.J.It was a humiliating defeat

390. for the Commodore, a man who was so fiercely competitive,

391. who wanted to win at absolutely everything,

392. to whom money was so important,

393. and here he was, defeated, and insulted publicly,

394. by Gould and Fisk.

395. Gould and Fisk may be on top of the world,

396. but they've awakened a sleeping lion.

397. Vanderbilt vows to never be beaten again.

398. They don't think in terms of money.

399. They think in terms of winning.

400. Now, naturally, if you win big in business,

401. money follows, but that shouldn't be your objective.

402. Your objective should be to win.

403. Win, win, win. All the time. Not sometimes. Every time.

404. Vanderbilt immediately begins

405. looking for a new edge.

406. He realizes that the rail roads have been overbuilt,

407. and the future of the industry isn't in building

408. new lines, but in transporting new cargo.

409. Innovation is not a big breakthrough

410. invention every time.

411. Innovation is a constant thing.

412. And if you don't have an innovate company

413. coming to work everyday to find a better way,

414. you don't have a company.

415. You're getting ready to die on the vine.

416. If Vanderbilt can corner the market

417. on a new source of freight, one that can keep his trains

418. constantly full, he'll be able to control

419. the rail road industry.

420. And the Commodore knows just where to look.

421. Oil is revolutionizing life in America.

422. Crude from the ground is being refined into kerosene,

423. a safe and inexpensive source of light,

424. and that access to light is completely

425. changing the way Americans live.

426. Before kerosene, the average American

427. didn't have access to a consistent light source.

428. When the sun came down, darkness ruled.

429. Kerosene is a phenomenon that will forever change the world.

430. And Vanderbilt knows it's his next opportunity to cash in.

431. The idea is to see what's missing.

432. That's what a creative entrepreneur does,

433. he serves people things that they need.

434. Some people can't find a new thing to do.

435. But sometimes you see something

436. that everybody has to have.

437. Oh men, I've got to give them this

438. And then you go to work on it.

439. Because they need it.

440. Vanderbilt sees the demand for

441. kerosene skyrocketing all across the country.

442. He knows that to meet the demand,

443. the makers of kerosene will need

444. a new way to ship their oil.

445. If Vanderbilt can corner the market on those oil shipments,

446. he'll propel himself back to the top

447. of the rail road industry.

448. All he needs to do now is find a supplier.

449. We're gonna extend along the south shore to Cleveland.

450. Why Cleveland?

451. Cleveland is a small city

452. of just under fifty thousand,

453. but it's sitting on top of an ocean of oil.

454. Eastern Ohio is the Middle East of its day,

455. and the area around Cleveland

456. is one of the largest oil fields in the world.

457. Vanderbilt learns about a refinery

458. built near the rail roads in Cleveland.

459. The perfect mark for his master plan.

460. He reaches out to the owner,

461. a struggling young oil man Vanderbilt

462. is hoping to pluck from obscurity.

463. That oil man is John D. Rockefeller.

464. Why are we playing so much in plumbers?

465. We run a refinery.

466. So, we start making our own pipes.

467. At this rate, we'll be lucky if we break even this year.

468. If you wanna call it a day, John, just say.

469. I should go.

470. ls everything all right?

471. It's fine.

472. At the age of twenty-seven,

473. Rockefeller is in the early stages of building

474. his refining business, but his company is teetering

475. on the verge of bankruptcy.

476. Vanderbilt sees him as someone he can manipulate

477. to his advantage.

478. An exclusive deal to ship Rockefeller's oil

479. will guarantee that the Commodore's trains

480. stay filled with cargo.

481. Vanderbilt invites Rockefeller

482. to meet with him in New York.

483. For the young oil man, the meeting

484. is the opportunity of a lifetime.

485. A way out of his troubles,

486. and a way to save his company from complete collapse.

487. T.J. Rockefeller, he respected Vanderbilt.

488. He could see what he had achieved.

489. Vanderbilt was setting the pattern and the archetype

490. of what Rockefeller himself wanted to be.

491. He wanted to be the Vanderbilt of petroleum.

492. That's the way he saw himself.

493. As Rockefeller prepares

494. for his trip to New York,

495. Vanderbilt's plan is set in motion.

496. How long is this going to take?

497. Five to ten minutes.

498. The train departs Cleveland at 6:25 AM.

499. America is rising.

500. The country is experiencing a period of growth

501. like none it's ever seen.

502. Railroads have united the states,

503. and commerce flows with a speed never before thought possible.

504. The man at the forefront of this explosive change

505. is Cornelius Vanderbilt, but at 76,

506. he realizes that the rail roads have been overbuilt.

507. To stay ahead of the competition,

508. the Commodore turns to a new exploding industry,

509. and a struggling young oil man, John D. Rockefeller.

510. Vanderbilt invites him to New York City for a meeting.

511. Fate intervenes.

512. The Lord is my shepherd.

513. I shall not want.

514. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures.

515. He restoreth my soul.

516. John Rockefeller narrowly missed the train,

517. one that would've carried him

518. to his certain death.

519. The close call has a profound impact

520. on the young oil man.

521. He leadeth me into paths of righteousness

522. for His name's sake.

523. Amen.

524. A man of deep faith,

525. he becomes convinced that God has spared him for a reason.

526. H.W. Without thinking that he himself

527. in particular was chosen by God to become

528. this great business success, Rockefeller believed

529. that everything was divinely ordained,

530. so nothing happened in the world without God's will,

531. without God's blessing.

532. Rockefeller once again heads

533. to meet with Vanderbilt as a changed man.

534. Where before he was intimidated,

535. and facing bankruptcy, now he's a man of destiny.

536. Cornelius Vanderbilt may be the richest

537. and most powerful man in the country,

538. accustomed to getting what he wants,

539. but he has no idea what he's about to encounter.

540. Every business is about understanding people.

541. Which people you have to get through,

542. which people you have to embrace,

543. which people you have to jump over,

544. which people you have to push out of the way.

545. That's the game.