For Americans who have taken basic social studies, the term “robber baron” invokes an age where powerful men used corruption and schemes in order to make fortunes that established them as new money. In The Gilded Age, George Russell and the Russells represent the new money of the robber barons, and the latest episode made sure to highlight the dark side of that greed.
Spoilers for The Guilded Age.
The Old Money alderman establishment got in on a scheme of buying stocks in George Russell’s company in anticipation of their passage of a law allowing Russell to build a new railroad station in New York City (hello, future Grand Central Station), except they then revoked the law allowing the station to be built and sold the stock, planning to buy it again later for pennies as Russell’s company took a nosedive.
However, Russell uses his own capital to foil the plan by buying the stock himself and keeps his company not just afloat, but thriving. Of course, this completely ruins the plans of these men and ruins them financially in the process, since many of them used up all of their savings in order to originally buy the stocks.
One of the aldermen, Mr. Morris, takes his own life as the reality of his financial ruin takes over.
At the end of the episode, Julian Fellowes explains that this was based on a real incident surrounding Cornelius “Commodore” Vanderbilt, the man who many consider the original American robber baron. His individualism and power allowed him to become one of the wealthiest figures of all time, especially American history.
Being a “robber baron” included paying low wages to workers, using government influence for financially beneficial deals, and creating monopolies by crushing smaller businesses and other rivals.
In American history, these men have a complex legacy due to being, well, corrupt vampires, but also building a lot of the industry that still stands today. Every time I watch The Gilded Age, I hear names of streets, buildings, and legacies that live all over my home state. It is blood money, but it was still green enough to build this city.
Today, those in the tech industry have, in a sense, become the next generation of potential “robber barons,” having little oversight but so much power that grows constantly, influencing laws that benefit them while pretending they can’t be blamed for what they’re legally allowed to do.
Rutgers history professor Erica Armstrong Dunbar, Ph.D., told Vanity Fair that while the show takes liberties, “The real desire [was] to [create] the feeling of what it meant to be wealthy at that time. What it meant to have so-called new money, and the extent to which people worked to get it.”
George Russell may be a fictional figure, but he represents the dark side of this era’s greed and desire for conquest on the business stage. It is great that the show is tackling that, while allowing George to be an empathetic, fully rounded human being. It is important to show how humanity is capable of both. He has blood on his hands now.
But, we do respect that he loves his wife.
(image: HBO)
