Daniel Alef: 59 books

Biographical profile of America's first millionaire, John Jacob Astor, a German immigrant who arrived in Manhattan with five English pounds in his pocket and amassed ownership of large swaths of Manhattan en route to becoming the largest and wealthiest landholder in New York. Astor established a...

William Marcy Tweed was a big man at 300 pounds, a charming, garrulous man whose personality matched his girth. He could disarm the most disagreeable person; few could resist his charms. And like most big men, Tweed had a big appetite, but his craving was not just for food; it was for money and power....

Biographical profile of Amelia Earhart. Earhart’s disappearance has mesmerized the American public ever since her fateful around-the-world flight in 1937. However, the public’s fascination with Lady Lindy began long before her disappearance as she ventured into what was an almost exclusively male domain: airplanes and flight, flaunting convention with panache. This is her story.

In 1877, Charles Dana's New York Sun reported: "He taught New Yorkers how to eat, how to drink, how to dress, how to drive four-in-hands, how to furnish their houses, how to live generally according to the rules of the possibly somewhat effete, but unquestionably refined, society of the Old World." The...

The Huntington in San Marino, California, is one of the world's foremost collections of books, art and flora. Set in park-like grounds and a Beaux-Arts mansion built in the early 1900s, the Huntington boasts some of the rarest and most valuable artifacts on Earth from the Gutenberg Bible on vellum,...

The growth of commercial air transportation and the number of passengers flying today can be laid at the feet of one of the great aviation pioneers, Juan Trippe, who began a crusade to create an air network that would link America to the world. The Yale graduate was absorbed by flight and airplanes....

Biographical profile of Henry J. Kaiser a great industrialist and philanthropist who had a profound impact on America's ability to prevail in World War II. People tend to regard the great American titans of the past as robber barons men who made their fortunes off the backs of the oppressed flaunting...

Biographical profile of Ransom E. Olds, regarded as the first of the great American automobile pioneers. He not only sold the first car manufactured in America, his company was also the first of the great automobile enterprises, a model and training ground for the Dodge brothers, Henry Ford, Henry Leland...

Thomas Nast has been called the greatest political cartoonist of all time. He was much more than that. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant attributed his presidential victory in the 1868 campaign "to the sword of (Indian-fighting Gen. Phil) Sheridan and the pencil of Nast." Nast could smite the most powerful titans...

Biogrphical profile of one of America's most intriguing financiers, a man who made a fortune on Wall Street as a speculator. As to his chosen path, he said: "I am a speculator; and I make no apologies for it. The word comes from the Latin speculari -- to observe. I observe." Dispensing advice from...

Famed aviation pioneer Donald Douglas once said "Every airplane flying today has some Jack Northrop in it." Northrop was an aviation genius who was more interested in developing new technology than selling airplanes or making a fortune. The Northrop story is the story of American aviation history; he...

Biographical profile of one of America's iconic automobile pioneers, Walter Chrysler, a man Time magazine described as a "doctor of sick automobile companies." The Chrysler Building in New York, topped by its world-famous art deco tower, an enduring symbol of America's industrial evolution,...

Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson were staunch opponents of a national bank. When President Jackson let the charter of the second bank lapse after 20 years it left the nation unprepared and powerless to respond quickly or effectively to major economic declines or emergencies. J. Pierpont Morgan...

Mary Kay Ash is the quintessential example of a Phoenix rising from the ashes. After 10 years at World Gift Co., a direct sales organization, Ash resigned when an underling she had trained was promoted ahead of her--because he was a male. Ash, a 45-year-old unemployed divorcee with three children, was...