Juan Illingworth
November 13th, 2014
HIST 220-001
By: Kathryn Steen
James Buchanan Duke
The United States is well known for its anti-trust laws and stands
against monopolies, but this was not always the case. By the late 1800’s,
the United States was a land with a gigantic class gap between the rich
and the poor. The poor were getting poorer, while the rich were amassed
their wealth at the lower class’s expense. The term robber baron1 began
to be used as a derogatory term for wealthy people who used unorthodox
and exploitative practices to grow their businesses. Some of these
practices included paying extremely low wages to their employees, selling
in-ated stocks, taking over control of natural resources, and of course
creating monopolies. Robber barons were known for using their cheap and
dirty business practices to dominate over all competitors in their industry.
Among these barons there was a man who would own all the tobacco
market in the United States, a man named James Buchanan Duke. James
1 Robber barons combined a sense of criminal and aristocracy, and this
term became popular to vilify any big business owners. Robber barons
were seen as “gods” among men, as they possessed too much power for
one man alone.
Buchanan Duke revolutionized the tobacco industry through consolidating
competitors, and monopolized his industry; his business practices had a
long lasting impact to both modern industries and society as a whole.
James was born to farmer parents in Orange County, North Carolina.
After the Civil War, the Duke family pro8ted through selling small bags of
tobacco to soldiers. More and more soldiers demanded the Duke tobacco
packages, and Duke, Sons and Company was born. It was here that James
got his start into the dealings of the tobacco industry. Through his family
business, James was able to attend Eastman School Of Business, and after
graduation, returned to his family farm and immersed himself into all
phases of the tobacco process. James proved to be “particularly adept at
bargaining with tobacco growers”, and came to be known as quite
ruthless—something that became quite handy when he later built his
