American Rascal: How Jay Gould Built Wall Streets Biggest Fortune Steinmetz Greg

The gripping biography of Jay Gould, the greatest 19th-century robber barons, whose brilliance, greed, and bare-knuckled tactics made him richer than Rockefeller and led Wall Street to institute its first financial reforms.Had Jay Gould put his name on a university or concert hall, he would undoubtedly have been a household name today. After entering Wall Street at the age of twenty-four, he quickly became notorious when he paralyzed the economy and nearly toppled President Ulysses S. The son of a poor farmer whose early life was marked by tragedy, Gould saw money as the means to give his family a better life...even if, to do so, he had to pull a fast one on everyone else.

Through clever financial maneuvers, he Grant in the Black Friday market collapse of 1869 in an attempt to corner the market on gold--an event that remains among the darkest days in Wall Street history.