The Book Prize Index

The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt

T. J. Stiles

The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt is a 2009 biography of Cornelius Vanderbilt, a 19th-century American industrialist and philanthropist who built his fortune in the shipping and railroad industries, becoming one of the wealthiest Americans in the history of the U.S. It was written by American biographer T. J. Stiles. The book was honored with the 2009 National Book Award for Nonfiction and the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography.

BiographyBiography · high confidenceBiography81 signalsLlm Classifier: Biography -> BiographyOpen Library: Vanderbilt, cornelius, 1794-1877 -> BiographyOpen Library: Businesspeople, biography -> BiographyBusiness BiographyMemoir & Personal HistoryBusiness, Capitalism & Corporations

Award History

2 wins · 2 total

AwardYearResultCategory / Notes
Pulitzer Prize in Biography or AutobiographyMajor2010WinnerSecondary source
National Book Award for NonfictionMajor2009WinnerSecondary source
View all award history (2)
Experimental book profileGenerated by GPT-5.4 nano · may contain inaccuracies

This is an unverified interpretation of the catalog description, offered as an opt-in discovery experiment—not as bibliographic fact.

  1. 01 Central figures

    • Cornelius Vanderbilt95%

  2. 02 Central places

    None extracted with sufficient confidence.

  3. 03 Suggested argument

    No argument inferred with sufficient confidence.

  4. 04 Reading orientation

    35 / 100 academic

    Serious trade

    An estimate of intended readership and scholarly apparatus—not quality or importance.

Confidence percentages are the model's own estimates. Profile confidence: 78%.