Crédit Mobilier of America

Durant, Ames helped create the Crédit Mobilier of America—a company formed to build the Union Pacific Railroad. The Crédit Mobilier allowed a small number of individuals to reap vast fortunes from the construction of the line. By early 1868, Congress seemed certain to investigate charges of improper use of government…

…Railroad (1865–69); the incident established Crédit Mobilier of America as a symbol of post-Civil War corruption. Although its operations were more or less typical of 19th-century railroad building in a wide-open period of U.S. history often referred to as the “Great Barbecue,” sensational newspaper exposures and congressional investigations focussed attention…