Were the Nineteenth-Century Entrepreneurs “Robber Barons”? Throughout the nineteenth century, the United States had just experienced a transformation that has revolutionized the world of business. The industrial revolution has brought in many new innovations such as, the railroad, a new method of effective and efficient transportation, and machinery which would increase the manufacturing process ten-fold. As new and effective manufacturing methods have been brought to light, the value of manufactured goods increased twelve-fold, while the invested capital in industrial pursuits multiplied twenty two times. (History of the United States pg. 270) The industrial revolution has not only brought economic prosperity in the United States, it has also jump-started the nation’s industrial growth. Throughout history, many of the big businessmen such as J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, and Andrew Carnegie, who control most of the big business during the period of the nineteenth century, are looked at in two different interpretations: Robber Barons or Entrepreneurial Statesman. Howard Zinn, a civil rights protestor and peace activist with a PhD from Columbia University, has written the paper, “Robber Barons and Rebels”, which supports the argument that the big businessmen are in fact Robber Barons. Zinn believed that the entrepreneurs of big business adopted business practices that encouraged monopolies and used the powers of government to control the masses from rebellion. Grover Cleveland, after being elected President of the United States in 1884, was paid off by Jay Gould who said to him, “I feel… that the vast business interests of the country will be entirely safe in your hands.” (History of the United States pg. 275) One example of him trying to control the masses from rebellion was in 1893, when he “used troops to break up “Coxey’s Army,” a demonstration of