Lindsey Baber
 Started
out as his older brother’s helper
in a butcher shop at 14
 Born June 24, 1839 in West Sandwich,
Massachusetts (now Sagamore) in the US
 Started
his own meat business with $20
that his father gave to him
 Borrowed $400 from his uncle to expand
his business and had enough money by
1859 to have his own butcher shop in
Eastham, Massachusetts
 Later created a second store in
Barnstable
 Carefully watched the market value of the
cattle he bought
 Meat-packing
industry
 Created the refrigerated rail car to
transport cheaper meat in a safer
environment
 His beliefs that cleanliness would avoid
spoiled meat and meat loss allowed him
to rise to success quicker
 Used “vertical integration” for cheaper
rates
 His
business centered mostly in Massachusetts,
but eventually conquered the British market
and went international
 One of his cattle-buying partners was
suspicious of his idea to transport dressed meat
rather than live cattle (because it was cheaper)
and left the partnership with a $30,000 buyout
 When the railroad companies were against his
ideas and raised the rate for transportation of
dressed meat, he found a company that never
made much profit from cattle-shipping, the
Grand Trunk Railway
 Later
became part of the pork and
mutton industry
 In the early 1900s, his company, Swift and
Company was worth $25 million
 Philanthropist
or Captain of Industry
because of his smart ideas and great
inventions; however he found many
loopholes or ways to get around his
problems and used “vertical integration”
(or cutting out the middle man) to reach
his wealthy success, which leads many to
believe that he was a robber baron.
This cartoon basically describes how
Gustavus Swift created his
refrigerated rail cars to have cheaper
rates on transportation of his dressed
meats. He found that slaughtering
cattle in a different location and
shipping only the dressed meat would
be cheaper than shipping live cattle
because it is less freight, meaning
less money in rates. Swift was a
leading industrialist in the meatpacking industry, as shown in this
cartoon.
 "Gustavus
Franklin Swift." Encyclopædia
Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica
Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc.,
2012. Web. 03 Feb. 2012.
<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked
/topic/577006/Gustavus-Franklin-Swift>.
 “Gustavus Franklin Swift.” The Robinson
Library. Web. 3 Feb 2012.
<http://www.robinsonlibrary.com/social/
industries/agricultural/swift.htm>