Henry Huttleston Rogers - Commentaries

Commentaries

Earl J. Dias has written a commentary about Henry Huttleston Rogers:

"What is the final verdict on Rogers?

"First of all, he was a child of his times — an era that historian Howard Mumford Jones has dubbed 'the Age of Energy'. It was a time during which Americans of vast wealth, the Rockefellers, the Goulds, the Pratts, the Harrimans, the Archbolds, exploited and experimented with ideas, styles, fads, and each other. And, surprisingly, they also made invaluable contributions to libraries, schools, universities, charities, and the like. In fact, these rip roaring capitalists were striking examples of the gleeful swashbuckling, the innocence and guilt of what Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner called 'The Gilded Age.'

"Perhaps the central truth about Rogers was that he was a role player, a born actor. From his experiences on the Phoenix Hall stage in Fairhaven in his youth, he learned the art of being theatrical in the dramatic situations that cropped up in his life.

"In the business world he was the 'man of steel': hard, shrewd, ruthless, giving no quarter.

"In his social life, he was amicable, popular, charismatic, a boon companion, a genial host."