Is anybody else watching The Men Who Built America on the History Channel?
I generally prefer a pure documentary to the reenactment / dramatization that they're doing, but I'm really enjoying this. I will add that I thought that the first two episodes were better than the third, though that could be because the subject matter was pretty grim.
I watched last night. I found it interesting, especially when you begin to understand how some of their decisions impacted the economy of the whole country. Each of them had way too much power.
I've been watching - pretty interesting
Haven't seen it, but I heard good things about it today from one of my students.
DeadSkunk wrote: I watched last night. I found it interesting, especially when you begin to understand how some of their decisions impacted the economy of the whole country. Each of them had way too much power.
They were incredibly powerful, but there was no precedent in place to anticipate (or fear) that situation. The country was only a hundred years old at that point.
It beats that reality "history" bullE36 M3, any day of the week.
I caught it too and liked it. I've seen Vanderbilt, Rockerfeller one, and part of the Carnegie one that was on this Tuesday. Were those the first and second episodes? I want to see the one with Ford.
And one word "Monopoly." Because of these guys we have laws against monopolies. It's crazy.
Two things I found crazy interesting, Vanderbilt owning the only train bridge into New York. Which he used to essentially blockade the city and destroy his competition. Second, Rockerfeller owning 95% of the oil refineries. Crazyness.
Is this the one hosted by Mike Rowe? If so we caught it a little while ago while channel surfing and watched it for a while. Pretty interesting.
One important thing about these guys was there ability to get anything they wanted in their pursuit of power, wealth, and property.
If they wanted to lay railroad across your backyard, they would.
If they wanted to build a shipyard on your property, they would.
We can't, and probably shouldn't go back to those days of absolute power, but we should definitely take a good hard look at the inefficiencies of our infrastructure and decide whether we want to let the rest of the world catch up while we try to figure out how pay, protect, and build a better tomorrow.
Setting up the DVR... when did the History channel start showing historical programming? I thought it was all ghost stories and digging for magical artifacts from the bible.
Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote: Setting up the DVR... when did the History channel start showing historical programming? I thought it was all ghost stories and digging for magical artifacts from the bible.
Don't forget TEH ALIENS!!!11UNO
octavious wrote: Because of these guys we have laws against monopolies.
And... we have Monopoly.
Okay, now I have Horslips' The Man Who Built America stuck in my head...
Thanks for posting this, I had heard about it, but forgot. 10 years ago History was one of my go-to channels, now, not so much. 
Anyhow, DVR set. Thank God for reruns.
Ah man, i need to tell the lady to find this on reruns so she can record it while I'm gone. I saw the commercials and had been anticipating watching them. Are they going to talk about Flagler at all? The man was up there with Ford, Vanderbilt, Carnegie, and Rockerfeller.
You could say Gates, Jobs, and Wozniak are comparable to these folks in the computer age.
I just sent my Tivo a request to record all these. Technology is awesome.
Woody wrote:DeadSkunk wrote: I watched last night. I found it interesting, especially when you begin to understand how some of their decisions impacted the economy of the whole country. Each of them had way too much power.They were incredibly powerful, but there was no precedent in place to anticipate (or fear) that situation. The country was only a hundred years old at that point.
I have been watching. Particularly interesting to me since I grew up in the Pittsburgh area and had relatives who lived thru that era and worked in those industries.
New episode tonight at 9 pm.
I think it should be called "men who profited from real americans who built america with their lives."
Those big-bank, big-money families continue to rape america, so equating them to heros is much like saying that Columbus discovered the new world and had a turkey dinner with the Indians.
curtis73 wrote: I think it should be called "men who profited from real americans who built america with their lives." Those big-bank, big-money families continue to rape america, so equating them to heros is much like saying that Columbus discovered the new world and had a turkey dinner with the Indians.
if you decide to build a house and hire contractors to do all the work, when asked about it, will you say that you contracted it out to XYZ construction, who subcontracted out to other companies to get all the different parts of the work done and that you'd like to give an extra special shout out to Jeff for his magnificent work on the HVAC system, or do you just tell people that you built your dream house?
they are the guys that got E36 M3 done. .good or bad right or wrong, they were the motivating power behind the things that got done.
I never called them heros, I just said it was an interesting TV show.
Also, I built my house. Special shout out to me for just about everything.
They doing one on Edison? Or would they have to dwell on the fact that he wasn't so much an inventor but a "borrower" who would improve upon other peoples ideas.
phaze1todd wrote: They doing one on Edison? Or would they have to dwell on the fact that he wasn't so much an inventor but a "borrower" who would improve upon other peoples ideas.
Last night's episode was about Edison/JP Morgan vs. Tesla/Westinghouse. Sadly, I fell asleep before the end. Off to wikipedia to see how it turned out. 
I saw the first half of the Edison episode. It was enough to convince me to DVR the whole shebang and start from Episode 1. I like some of the people they have adding commentary, like Jerry Weintraub. Which episode is Tim going to be in? Perhaps when they get to W.R. Hearst.
I'm enjoying the series. In college I took a class on the history of technology to 1900, and it's coming back to me as I watch.
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