Most manufacturing was still conducted in family-owned workshops and small mills; very few factories represented as much as $1 million of investment. (Historian Alfred D. Chandler Jr. counted only forty-one textile mills in the 1850s capitalized at $250,000 or more.) Even the largest commercial banks rarely boasted a capitalization of more than $1 million. By contrast, at least ten railroads had a capitalization of $10 million or more even before the war began.
large market cap companies today do not need that kind of capital to start like Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Google.
