Stanford

Leland Stanford: The Spike of The Big Four

Abstract
This paper explores articles that detail the events and happenings of the life of Leland Stanford. Several encyclopedia articles focus on his life. (Baker & Hutchins, 2001) focuses on Stanford’s personal life and family, while (Bourgoin, 1998) focuses on how Stanford accumulated his wealth by helping build the transcontinental railroad, opening a store with his brothers, and several other business ventures. Other articles such as (Carson & Bonk, 1999) focus on his government career and how he made the transition from the eighth Governor of California to Senator of the United States. The final articles focus on Leland Stanford’s crowning glory, Stanford University and how the death of Stanford’s only child impacted its construction. (Olmstead, 2009) and (Stanford, 2010) analyze Stanford’s student population. (Worlds, 2004) focuses on Stanford’s history and famous alumni and (Stanford Admissions, 2010) focuses on Stanford Universities acceptance criteria. This paper analyzes Leland Stanford’s life and business ventures and how they positively affected society.

Leland Stanford: The Spike of The Big Four
In a time of corrupt politicians and trust tycoons, Leland Stanford stood out as an honest and hardworking businessman. The term “Robber Baron” was used to describe a successful industrialist who used cheap immigrant workers and the necessity of trade to build his or her fortune. Technically, this word could be used to describe Leland Stanford, as he was a successful industrialist and did use immigrant workers; but that is not the case. Leland Stanford was different than the average business tycoon in the fact that he truly wanted to help revolutionize America, unlike others who greedily just wanted to make money by taking advantage of others. He put his time and money into making this a better place for everyone. Even in the shadow of death and sorrow of his only son, Stanford created a memorial for his...