Richard White
John D. Rockefeller and John D. Rockefeller Jr. in 1915. American
liberals of the Gilded Age were suspicious of vast corporate
wealth, which they saw as a major cause of poverty. / Library of Congress
Speaking in New Haven in 1860, Abraham Lincoln told an audience, “I am not ashamed to confess that 25 years ago I was a hired laborer, mauling rails, at work on a flat-boat just what might happen to any poor man’s son.” After his death, Lincoln’s personal trajectory from log cabin to White House emerged as the ideal American symbol. Anything was possible for those who strived.