Dark Genius of Wall Street: The Misunderstood Life of Jay Gould, King of the Robber Barons

Among the "robber barons" of the Gilded Age, Jay Gould is perhaps the least remembered today. Yet in his time, he was famous, or rather infamous. Rockefeller was oil, Carnegie was steel, Vanderbilt was steamships and railroads - Gould was (yes, railroads) but more accurately, the "financial genius" on Wall Street. If you enjoy the intrigue of deals and the techniques, tricks, and mechanisms of "the street," then here's how it was done in the Gilded Age - Gould was the master of it, often outmaneuvering the likes of Vanderbilt, to amass what was estimated to be a $125 million fortune, around $71 billion in today's dollars (NY Times estimate).Of course, a lot of what Gould did back then would be illegal today, like insider trading. He would issue stock in a company, devaluing shares, after having shorted the stock. He would short stock and then have one of the newspapers he owned pan the company. During a price war, when Vanderbilt reduced his railroad shipping fees to bargain-basement prices, Gould simply took advantage of it by getting into the livestock business, using his competitor's railroad to ship the cattle, resulting in a great profit. Commodore Vanderbilt was livid when he found out.Gould became one of the most unpopular men in America. He was routinely vilified in the press. Even when he was reported to have given to charity or contributed to community works, he was vilified for ulterior motives. Much of that characterization remains today: In April 2009, Conde Nast's Portfolio ranked Gould as the "8th worst American CEO's of all time." Renehan's biography provides a much-needed, more objective story.In person, Gould was rather mild-mannered, and a devoted family man. Despite his growing wealth, he and his bride lived for a while at his in-laws' house. He didn't give much thought his clothes. He preferred that his partner, the flamboyant James Fisk Jr., do the entertaining of clients and the press. Later in life, after accumulating so much, he finally indulged: buying a yacht and building a castle. Lynhurst, which stands today.Also, unlike most biographies written, the author includes a final chapter on Gould's descendants. Despite what could be called "a complex and in some ways ingenious" will, the Gould family fortune did not survive. (This might be one of the reasons Gould is not known today, like Rockefeller.) Gould's oldest son was left in charge of the affairs, and he made a mess of things, losing millions, and fracturing the family into warring parties forever divided, and the Gould fortune continued to dwindle with each generation.This is a fast read, a much shorter book than Chernow's Rockefeller or Stiles' Vanderbilt. Gould probably deserves a biography on that grand scale, but Renehan's provides perhaps a good if not great effort yet.

Joseph Pulitzer, as quoted by Edward Renehan in "Dark Genius of Wall Street", once said that Jay Gould was "the most sinister presence that ever flitted, bat-like, across the vision of the American people." This was the popular perception of Gould during his lifetime, and it's the popular perception today. While Renehan's stated purpose is to correct this image of Gould, he doesn't really do so.That's not to say that reading "Dark Genius" is a waste of time. It's not. This is a readable and smartly-written biography of one of the seminal figures of the Gilded Age, and Renehan does a fine job of animating the man behind the name and the legend. But a lot of it is a retread of the work of Maury Klein and Julius Grodinsky, two business historians who were more sympathetic to Gould than previous historians were.Renehan is a Gould sympathizer, and perhaps not without reason. Certainly Jay Gould was a brilliant and impressive man, and certainly he was demonized in his lifetime and beyond. But Renehan doesn't explain why Gould SHOULDN'T be demonized. We can explain away some of the excesses of his peers, like Carnegie, Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, and Morgan, by looking at their accomplishments. They built gigantic businesses ex nihilo and, altruistically or not, laid the groundwork for America's 20th century industrial and financial preeminence. But if Jay Gould also deserves credit for this, Renehan doesn't explain how, beyond pointing out that Gould traveled a lot on his own railroads to see first-hand how things were going and make suggestions for their improvements.Renehan doesn't really do much to place Jay Gould in a broader context. Had he done so, we might have learned more about Gould's significance. We might have come to regard him as one of the architects of American finance and capitalism. We learn that he liked growing orchids, we learn that he suffered from tuberculosis, and we learn that he was startlingly egalitarian for his time. He respected other self-made men, and apparently genuinely encouraged others to pull themselves up by their bootstraps as he'd done. But we don't learn why he should be regarded as anything other than a sinister manipulator of the markets, nor if he did anything more significant than make a heck of a lot of money.One fascinating twist to the Gould story is that, according to Renehan, he actually encouraged the popular perception of himself so that everyone would be afraid of him, even to the extent of giving to charity anonymously, so no one would know what an ol' softie he really was. Well, perhaps. But "Dark Genius" doesn't provide a lot of evidence to suggest that the popular perception was wrong."Dark Genius of Wall Street" is a good source of information about Jay Gould, and an entertaining read. But if Renehan set out to write a definitive work of revisionist history, he didn't accomplish it. Gould may be a little less inscrutable by the end of "Dark Genius," but he still comes across as a cynical, self-interested manipulator of the work of others--a primordial Gordon Gekko and template for the 20th century corporate raider who used his breathtaking mastery of the market to exploit the accomplishments of others.

We are going to visit the Robber Baron Mansions and this was one of the recommended readings. My husband is loving the book. It is well put together. I am reading another one of the recommended reads. "When the Astor's owned New York" also very informative.

very well researched and evenly-balanced look into a rather complex, but brilliant character, from his boyhood beginnings to the operations and manipulations he is generally vilified for. This is early US capitalism in full flood, but not in the manner of the Astors or the Vanderbilts. You end up admiring the man's dedication to his family, his frugality, common sense and sheer balls. A family tree would have helped the reader, and also some maps

I originally bought the hard back copy shortly after publication, some years ago. This order was a replacement, as I thought I had lost the original. I have since found it, so this order has been given to the Society of Genealogist in London. Their librarian is very pleased with it.Edwin Lambert