Innovator or Thief?

Robber Barons, a term used in the late 1800s and early 1900s to describe a businessman who made an enormous amount of money, today we would call them billionaires. It was not really the fact they made an extreme amount of wealth, it was more the way they made it. In all the cases the acquiring of wealth was done in what was considered a ruthless manor and unscrupulous ways. A robber baron was more interested in acquiring wealth than the safety of his employees, the amount of work hours performed in a week, or the amount of wage being paid for a days work.

For example Andrew Carnegie(the robber baron of the steel industry), he was instrumental in starting the 72 hour work week, paying out less than fair wages and having dangerous working conditions.

The robber barons were known for their business tactics that would enable them to amass a wealth by monopolies. They would corner the market on a product or service and make it almost impossible to get, accept through them. To what extent was it justified to characterize the industrial leaders of the late 19th century as either "robber barons" or "captains of industry?"

The Ku Klux Klan

The first branch of the Ku Klux Klan was established in Pulaski, Tennessee, in May, 1866. A year later a general organization of local Klans was established in Nashville in April, 1867. Most of the leaders were former members of the Confederate Army and the first Grand Wizard was Nathan Forrest, an outstanding general during the American Civil War. During the next two years Klansmen wearing masks, white cardboard hats and draped in white sheets, tortured and killed black Americans and sympathetic whites. Immigrants, who they blamed for the election of Radical Republicans, were also targets of their hatred. Between 1868 and 1870 the Ku Klux Klan played an important role in restoring white rule in North Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia.What effect did Reconstruction have on blacks? Were they better off after Reconstruction than they were before the Civil War?

Jim Crow laws were enacted after Reconstruction.Are you shocked by these accounts of public torture and lynching?

• If not, why not?
• If so, what do you find most shocking? (the methods? the audience? the atmosphere? the quasi-official character of the proceedings?)