Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Prologue

1. Early Shipping
2. American Shipping Consortium
3. The Corner
4. Economic Expansion
5. Community of Interest
6. Vanderbilt
7. Marc Hanna
8. The Creation of Political Leadership
9. Roosevelt
10. The Business of the Presidency
11. The Maritime Subsidy Bill
12. Roosevelt Rises
13. A Rift Between Friends
14. The Subsidy Bill Under Debate In Congress
15. Opposition in Congress
16. The Loyal Opposition
17. Pan-American Exposition
18. A New President
19. An Uninvited Agenda
20. The Anti-McKinley
21. Hanna’s Last Hurrah
22. Financial Contributions to an Incumbent
23. Harriman and the Far East
24. Competition in the Far East
25. Global Interference
26. The Panic of 1907
27. Roosevelt is Denied the 1908 Race
28. Hill and the Far East
29. Historic Rivalry
30. Free Ships
31. Breathing Life into the IMM
32. The American Invaders!
33. Cunard
34. IMM
35. Lusitania, Aquitania, Mauretania and Titanic
36. Investigation and Aftermath
37. Legacy
38. The End of a Dream

Afterword
Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the Author

About the Author

Steven H. Gittelman has served as president of the Board of Trustees at The Suffolk County Vanderbilt Museum for fifteen years. In his previous book, Gittelman followed his subject around the world to fashion his biography of Willie K. Vanderbilt. During that search, an obscure article in the New York Times provided him with a thread that unraveled this fascinating tale of the men who aspired global transportation dominance and how each one chased his own version of the dream, only to taste bitter failure.

Reviews

This is a well documented synthesis. Steve Gittelman has a profound understanding of individuals—their passions and motivations—he weaves a unique tale while breathing life into his characters—providing an in depth view of the actions and their consequences to the players who ranged gigantic at the birth of the twentieth century. It is a dramatic story of business titans toppled by the enormity of their dreams.
*Carole Hart, director, Greensboro Historic Museum*

After impressive historical detective work, Steve Gittelman has revealed a fascinating, untold story. His cast of bankers, railroad tycoons and politicians may have failed to create a global shipping monopoly, but their gigantic endeavor is one more illustration of how fearless optimism and audacity in the early 20th century marked America’s rapid rise to become the world’s greatest economic power.
*Lance Reinheimer, executive director, The Vanderbilt Museum*