Promotional Information

The epic story of an American visionary and scoundrel

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements   vii
1. The Inner Light   1
2. The Spoils of War   13
3. Addition, Division, and Silence   27
4. Trial by Fire   35
5. Trial by Jury   44
6. Judgment Day   56
7. Buried Alive   67
8. Starting Over   78
9. The Phoenix   90
10. Mass Transit   99
11. Tunnel Vision   110
12. Getting a Grip   121
13. Strike!   131
14. Reaching for the Stars   145
15. Crashing the Party   154
16. Current Events   168
17. An Elevating Prospect   178
18. Business and Pleasure   201
19. The Temptation of Governor Altgeld   213
20. On the Brink   225
21. The Franchise War   235
22. The Battle of His Life   251
23. End Game   265
24. London   278
25. Building a Monument   278
26. The American Invaders   299
27. The Final Struggle   311
Epilogue   322
Notes   325
Index   367

Illustrations follow pages 60 and 192

About the Author

John Franch is coauthor of An Illini Place: Building the University of Illinois Campus.  

Reviews

"Robber Baron is a welcome addition to the surprisingly small shelf of full-length biographies of Chicago's storied entrepreneurs and can be read for profit by anyone intrigued by one of the most notorious of the men to have built the material foundations on which the city's prosperity has come to rest." Chicago Tribune "A fascinating window into the workings of laissez-faire capitalism. Yerkes, one of the most notorious self-made men of nineteenth-century America, embodied the drive, avarice, and unscrupulousness of his age-- taking each to its limits... Franch's narrative of the ups and down of Yerkes's career is well written and has considerable dramatic tension." Enterprise & Society "A superb biography: The research is thorough, the prose is clear, the narrative is compelling and the judgments are fair." Wall Street Journal