Publisher's Synopsis
Born Edward Henry Harriman in 1848 of an ordained deacon father in the Presbyterian Church and well-connected socialite mother, Young Edward attended private school in New Jersey and New York, but dropped out at age 14 to take a job as a Wall Street errand boy. He moved up rapidly to become a managing clerk and, ultimately, became a stockbroker with a seat on the New York stock exchange. Harriman began investing his own money in railway stocks, and even married into a railroad family. In 1881, he bought his first railroad company outright in upstate New York and his name soon became synonymous with "railroad."
