The Men Who Built America
The Men Who Built America is an eight-hour, four-part miniseries docudrama by the History Channel. It is the first installment of the That Built franchise.
Overview
The series focuses on the lives of Cornelius Vanderbilt, John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, J. P. Morgan, and Henry Ford. It tells how their industrial innovations and business empires revolutionized modern society. The series is directed by Patrick Reams and Ruán Magan and is narrated by Campbell Scott. It averaged 2.6 million total viewers across four nights.Cast
Additional narration was provided by H. W. Brands, Mark Cuban, Donny Deutsch, Donald Trump, Jim Cramer, and Steve Case.- William Jennings Bryan – James Kidd
- Andrew Carnegie – – Adam Jonas Segaller
- * Andrew Carnegie – – AJ Achinger
- Thomas Edison – Justin Morck
- James Fisk – Kenneth Cavett
- Henry Ford – Cary Donaldson
- Henry Clay Frick – John C. Bailey
- Jay Gould – Cameron McNary
- William McKinley – Dan Odell
- J. P. Morgan – – Ray Reynolds
- * J. P. Morgan – – Eric Rolland
- Junius Spencer Morgan – Daniel Berkey
- John D. Rockefeller – Tim Getman
- Theodore Roosevelt – Joseph Wiegand
- Charles M. Schwab – John Keabler
- Thomas A. Scott – Don Meehan
- Nikola Tesla – Alex Falberg
- Cornelius Vanderbilt – David Donahoe
- William Henry Vanderbilt – Michael Chmiel
- George Westinghouse – Einar Gunn
Episodes
Note: The series consists of eight one-hour episodes; for TV they were combined into four two-hour episodes.Release
It was originally broadcast on the History Channel in autumn 2012, and on the History Channel UK in fall 2013.Reception
Critical response
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 62% of 13 critics' reviews are positive. On Metacritic the series has a score of 60 out of 100, based on 4 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".Neil Genzlinger from The New York Times observed that the series did not contain startling revelations about its principal subjects, although certainly gave them a modern-day relevance. Linda Holmes writing for NPR ridiculed the series for dull presentation, corny re-enactments and ineffective narration. She criticized the production for feeling "a lot like a tricked-out version of an elementary school filmstrip" and suggested that the series might be popular among those who accepted Donald Trump as one of the experts.
Geoff Berkshire from Variety criticized the series for "overblown recreations backed by bombastic music, combined with tepid performances by the re-enactors and rudimentary writing". Mentioning the series' "ostentatious style begins to grate within the first 30 minutes", he scorned "the talking heads simply feel like filler" and the particular style of padding out the runtime when "the viewers are subjected to the customary recap of the previous segment after every ad break." He concluded that unlike the game-changing icons it intended to celebrate, the series failed to leave its mark. Verne Gay from Newsday gave the series "C" grade for "self-serving, obvious or of the fortune cookie variety" tips dispensed by the guests and for the lack of subtlety and historic context. On another hand, he praised the well-produced, although often static, recreations.