The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt (Pulitzer Prize Winner)

by T.J. Stiles

the nation fell into the greatest financial crisis in twenty years—the Panic of 1857. In retrospect, the warnings of a collapse look all too clear. There was railroad overexpansion: of the twenty thousand miles of line built in the 1850s (tripling the total length of track), 2,500 were constructed in 1857 alone. There was the end of the Crimean War: Russian wheat now flooded the international market, hurting American exports. There was France's need for money: French banks borrowed from those in England, which raised English interest rates, which led British investors to sell off their American securities and invest at home, which undercut stock prices in the United States. And there was the heady effect of nearly nine years of California gold, which had fed speculation and inflated credit. Since the start of the gold rush, the number of banks in America had doubled, to more than 1,500. The monetary expansion reached a peak in early August.