Edward Henry Harriman (1848–1909) financier and railroad developer

Born in Hempstead, Long Island, New York, by age 14 Harriman was employed on Wall Street. In 1870, Harriman became a member of the NEW YORK STOCK EXCHANGE, specializing in railroad securities. He married Mary Averell in 1879; one of their six children, William Averell Harriman, became a respected statesman and foreign policy expert.

Harriman’s association with financier Stuyvesant Fish enabled him to modernize and reorganize the Illinois Central Railroad. Growing conflict with Fish led Harriman away from the Illinois Central and toward the UNION PACIFIC RAILROAD. Harriman realized that Union Pacific’s performance could be improved by restructuring its debt and by making massive physical improvements to accommodate the traffic potential of a region that was beginning to emerge from the depression of the 1890s. Within 10 years, Harriman had orchestrated the expenditure of $160 million in capital improvements.

In addition to his commitment to modernization, Harriman understood the value of communities of interest—essentially, interlocking directorates—in the railroad industry in order to prevent overbuilding, guarantee equitable access to the traffic of connecting RAILROADS, and control competition. Harriman envisioned these communities of interest as the precursors of giant rail systems in the West. To that end, he acquired control of the Southern Pacific Railroad in 1901 and began to “Harrimanize” it in much the same manner as the Union Pacific. The Illinois Central, the UP, and the SP formed the core of the Harriman system—three technically separate corporations with similar organizational structures and philosophies, employing standardization to reduce the cost of purchasing, operations, and maintenance.

These communities of interest ran counter to the reformist impulses of the Progressive Era and won Harriman the personal displeasure of President Theodore Roosevelt. Harriman’s public disagreements with former ally Stuyvesant Fish and his association with the financially ailing Equitable Life further tarnished his reputation. In 1907, the INTERSTATE COMMERCE COMMISSION launched an inquiry into Harriman’s railroad and financial enterprises.

Harriman pledged his corporate and personal resources to a variety of public works. While Harriman never established a charitable trust, as did so many other philanthropists, he was instrumental in the creation of a state park near his New York home, sponsored a scientific expedition to Alaska, assisted victims of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and helped save California’s Imperial Valley from flooding. Harriman succumbed to stomach cancer in 1909.

See also BROWN BROTHERS HARRIMAN.

Further reading

• Hofsommer, Don L. The Southern Pacific, 1901–1985. College Station, Tex.: A & M University Press, 1986. 
• Klein, Maury. The Life and Legend of E. H. Harriman. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000. 

Albert Churella