TV Shows

An Accurate Account of the “Men Who Built America” Part 24

Posted on in Daily Blog, TV Shows with 4 Comments.

This is the twenty-fourth in my series of posts about the five businessmen the History Channel profiled in a terribly inaccurate and un-historical TV miniseries titled The Men Who Built America. I’m writing these posts in response to several comments and e-mails from TV viewers who have expressed interest in a more accurate version of the story. (Click here to see all Al’s columns on the program and its subjects.)

Post #24: The Homestead Steel Mill Strike

In late June of 1892 a labor strike at Andrew Carnegie’s Homestead Steel Works turned deadly when a gunfight erupted between striking workers and the security guards the company had brought in to protect the plant. The History Channel’s portrayal of this event was probably the low point of the entire eight hour The Men Who Built America miniseries. It was pure fiction.

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An Accurate Account of the “Men Who Built America” Part 23

Posted on in Daily Blog, TV Shows with 1 Comment.

This is the twenty-third in my series of posts about the five businessmen the History Channel profiled in a terribly inaccurate and un-historical TV miniseries titled The Men Who Built America. I’m writing these posts in response to several comments and e-mails from TV viewers who have expressed interest in a more accurate version of the story. (Click here to see all Al’s columns on the program and its subjects.)

Post #23: JP Morgan and the Electric Light

Late in 1878 JP Morgan wrote a letter to his brother-in-law about an investment opportunity that he considered “most important.” “Secrecy at the moment is so essential that that I do not dare put it on paper,” said Morgan. “Subject is Edison’s electric light.”

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An Accurate Account of the “Men Who Built America” Part 22

Posted on in Daily Blog, TV Shows with 1 Comment.

This is the twenty-second in my series of posts about the five businessmen the History Channel profiled in a terribly inaccurate and un-historical TV miniseries titled The Men Who Built America. I’m writing these posts in response to several comments and e-mails from TV viewers who have expressed interest in a more accurate version of the story. (Click here to see all Al’s columns on the program and its subjects.)

Post #22: Morgan and Vanderbilt vs Carnegie and Rockefeller in 1885

American history is railroad history, at least as far as the late nineteenth century is concerned. The ability to transport goods over land in a cost-effective way was so essential to the development of the nation that virtually everything that happened in the nation’s economy in those years was railroad connected in some way.
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An Accurate Account of the “Men Who Built America” Part 21

Posted on in Daily Blog, TV Shows with 3 Comments.

This is the twenty-first in my series of posts about the five businessmen the History Channel profiled in a terribly inaccurate and un-historical TV miniseries titled The Men Who Built America. I’m writing these posts in response to several comments and e-mails from TV viewers who have expressed interest in a more accurate version of the story. (Click here to see all Al’s columns on the program and its subjects.)

Post # 21: Tom Scott’s Business Goes Up in Flames

Thomas Alexander Scott is an important figure in American business history, known both for his role as executive of the Pennsylvania Railroad (or “Pennsy,” as it was commonly known) and for his early mentor-ship of Andrew Carnegie. Scott was the railroad’s vice president for fourteen years, and took over as president upon the death of J. Edgar Thompson in 1874.
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An Accurate Account of the “Men Who Built America” Part 20

Posted on in Daily Blog, TV Shows with No Comments.

This is the twentieth in my series of posts about the five businessmen the History Channel profiled in a terribly inaccurate and un-historical TV miniseries titled The Men Who Built America. I’m writing these posts in response to several comments and e-mails from TV viewers who have expressed interest in a more accurate version of the story. (Click here to see all Al’s columns on the program and its subjects.)

Post #20: The Race for the Telephone

In the year 1876 the United States celebrated its centennial in an atmosphere of rapid and uneven societal change. On June 25 and 26 of that year Indians killed “General” (actually Colonel) George Armstrong Custer and all his men at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in the Montana Territory. On the 25th, the day the battle started, Alexander Graham Bell demonstrated a working telephone at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia.
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