Matthew Josephson did not coin the term Robber Barons but he was certainly responsible for its entry into the English lexicon. Josephson's book, The Robber Barons, although not always precisely accurate is extremely readable. Josephson was writer and journalist and composed his book during the Great Depression, a time when any capitalist was thought to be an antisocial creature of dubious morality. Josephson notes that he got the term robber barons from an anti-railroad pamphlet of a Kansas agrarian group of the 1880's. Generally the term not refers to the men of industry and finance who acquired great wealth in the latter part of the nineteenth century. The defining characteristic of a robber baron was economic success. By this standard William Gates III of Microsoft Corporation would be considered a robber baron. But now there is the perception that entrepreneurs such as Bill Gates may have created social benefits equal to or greater than the fortune they accumulate. In Bill Gates' case there has been a tremendous social gain from making computers accessible to a much wider market through providing more user-friendly operating systems. If he was a sharp dealer in business transactions that was a necessity for survival in a market which saw less acute practioners achieve technical accomplishment but financial bankruptcy.
The business figures catalogued in The Robber Barons are:
One figure of the time not included in Josephson's gallery of robber barons is James J. Hill, who built the Great Northern Railroad. Hill's career is a very interesting contrast to the those of the other railroad magnates.