{"product_id":"flagler-rockefeller-partner-and-florida-baron-9780813011080","title":"Flagler: Rockefeller Partner and Florida Baron","description":"From reviews of the first edition: \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"A succinct and informed account of  Flagler's] leadership in transforming Florida's economy.\"--\u003ci\u003eAmerican Historical Review\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"An important contribution to the understanding of Standard Oil's extended partnership and how the personal desire of Flagler led to the early development of Florida's Atlantic Coast.\"--\u003ci\u003eThe Historian\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHenry M. Flagler (1830-1913), the ambitious Gilded Age tycoon who designed and built much of Florida's fashionable east coast, rode to success on the rails. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e As John D. Rockefeller's closest adviser in the 1870s, Flagler helped assemble the Standard Oil empire. In this thoroughly researched biography, Akin shows that Flagler understood early in his career that cheap freight rates determined industrial profits. Portraying Flagler as an aggressive entrepreneur, Akin documents his shrewd negotiations to obtain reduced rates, rebates, and drawbacks from the railroads, thus assuring Standard Oil's national domination over oil transportation costs. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Flagler drove himself as hard as he drove a bargain, obsessed with the desire to create a monument to himself that he called \"my domain.\" His legacy was no less than modern Florida. In 1885, at the age of fifty-five, he turned his attention away from Standard Oil and began construction of the Ponce de Le n luxury hotel in St. Augustine, the city where he had honeymooned with his second wife. Realizing he could never fill its rooms unless better transportation with the North was available, he embarked on the second railroad venture of his lifetime, creation of the Florida East Coast Railway. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Flagler's resort empire eventually included The Breakers in Palm Beach and the Royal Palm in Miami; his Atlantic coast railroad extended all the way to Key West, an engineering achievement that was called the \"eighth wonder of the world.\" By the beginning of the twentieth century, Flagler dominated not just the resort and railroad industries in Florida but steamship and agricultural operations, too. Florida politicians gave his projects preferential treatment, even changing the state's divorce law so he could marry for a third time. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Woven into this biography are details about Flagler's family, personality, three marriages, alienation from his only son, and devotion to the Presbyterian church--copy that fueled society gossip columns from New York to Palm Beach for decades. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eEdward N. Akin, author of Mississippi: An Illustrated History and other works on southern history, taught at Mississippi College in Clinton. His biography of Henry Flagler won the 1985 Phi Alpha Theta manuscript prize.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"University Press of Florida","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50328689475858,"sku":"9780813011080","price":17.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_d701a97d-c19e-4474-a44e-24692963202d.jpg?v=1727748865","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/flagler-rockefeller-partner-and-florida-baron-9780813011080","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}