How Old Were Carnegie, Rockefeller, Gould, and Morgan When Lincoln Died?

David Senra, reading Charles R. Morris's The Tycoons, says Andrew Carnegie was turning 30 when Abraham Lincoln died and was already wealthy, though he had been a factory bobbin boy hardly a decade and a half earlier and had not yet settled on a career. John D. Rockefeller was only 26, and his Cleveland oil refinery was one of the largest and most profitable in the country. Senra says Rockefeller may already have formed a plan to take over the whole industry. Jay Gould was 29 and was trying his hand as a railroad turnaround specialist. J. P. Morgan was 28, quietly learning the trade inside his father's banking network.

The four were never friends. Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Gould stood for the open chances in America, with vast resources and fewer class constraints than Europe. Morgan stood apart. He was born wealthy, and he defined his career in reaction to the entrepreneurs, on the side of finance rather than the side that built the products.