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= = James Buchanan Duke James Buchanan Duke was born on December 23, 1856 and died on October 10, 1925. He was born and grew up, in Durham, North Carolina. He became well known as an industrialist and philanthropist. His journey to wealth began when he inherited his father’s tobacco company along with his brother, also a popular industrialist. Duke soon developed a monopoly over most of the American Tobacco Market and used it to participate in Predatory Pricing. The American Tobacco company was later forced to split into three different companies. In 1892, Duke and his brother opened their first textile mill in their hometown. Opening the textile mill led to them opening their own power company called Duke Energy. Duke Energy supplied electric to not only their mill, but also many other mills and industrial companies. James had only one child, a daughter named Doris. He also was a giving person and gave millions of dollars to deserving places. In 1924, duke instituted The Duke Endowment a 430 million dollar (In today’s money) trust fund. The fund went to many different causes, especially the Trinity College that was later named Duke University, in tribute to his father. Other parts of it went to other colleges, hospitals, churches, and children homes.  Was he a Robber Baron or Captain of Industry? First you will need to know what both are and the difference between them. A Robber baron is defined as business leaders that bulit their fortunes by stealing from the public. They drove their competitors to ruin and paid meager wages while forcing their workers to work hard under dangerous and unhealthy conditions. While on the contrary, Captains of Industry were business leaders that served their nation in a positive way. They increased the availability of goods and created more jobs, enabiling more Americans to buy the new goods. Many people would call James a Robber Baron because he used his monoply to control prices and jack up prices. He participated in predatory pricing which is the practice of a firm selling a product at very low price with the intent of driving competitors out of the market,or create a barrier to entry into the market for potential new competitors.It became illegal under antitrust laws. He also was a philanthropist, and shared his wealth with others.  "James Buchanan Duke." __Wikipedia__.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Buchanan_Duke “The Duke Family.” __University Archives__. [|http://library.duke.edu/uarchives/history_/dukefamilyndx.html  Andrew Cayton, Ph.D, Elisabeth Earls Perry, Ph.D, Allan M. Winkler, Ph.D, America: Pathways to the Present, Prentice Hall, 1998