The Early Business History of Four Massachusetts Railroads—II

Abstract

The builders of the railroads in the 'thirties included not only inventors and engineers but also businessmen. It is the latter, usually neglected by historians, who solved business problems as significant as the problems of the engineers. At least, that was true of the roads in this study—the Boston & Lowell, the Boston & Worcester, the Eastern, and the Western. Although the formal structure of a business is not very important for small business firms, these four railroads represented at least two or three times the capitalization of the larger factories of that time. The early railroads, except for small branch lines like the Andover & Wilmington, were sufficiently large to demand careful business organizations if the enterprises were to be successful.