| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 93.4

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 93.4 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Robber Baron: The Life of Charles Tyson Yerkes. By John Franch. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2006. viii, 374 pp. $45.00, ISBN 0-252-03099-0.)
Charles Tyson Yerkes occupies a strange position in the history of American culture. Most people know him only as the model for Frank Cowperwood in Theodore Dreiser's novels, The Financier (1912) and The Titan (1914), rather than as an important figure in the Chicago and London traction industries. A lack of papers, coupled with an unsavory reputation, has deepened the mystery surrounding his actual career. Where other business titans have loomed larger than life in history, Yerkes finds himself upstaged by a fictional stand-in.	1
John Franch seeks to rescue Yerkes from undeserved oblivion in this first biography of the elusive financier. The results are mixed. Franch tracks the trajectory of Yerkes's life in some detail and explains most of its major episodes with admirable clarity, but his analysis lacks sufficient depth and scope to bring out its broader dimensions and more complex nuances. Too often he resorts to supposition when sources fail him.	. . .

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