The public image of the robber barons has always been a barometer of how America thinks about wealth. In the Progressive Era, the muckraker Ida Tarbell cast John D. Rockefeller as a ruthless monopolist, and Matthew Josephson’s compelling but one-sided Depression-era tome, “The Robber Barons,” scorched the lot of them. In recent decades serious biographers have reappraised the turn-of-the-century moguls and found more to like. Could the wheel be poised to turn again? With inequality considered a public enemy, a reappraisal might be ripe.

Source: Wall Street Journal July 27, 2020 22:52 UTC