Trying to plan a summer vacation to entertain my 17 year old son. His current favorite part of US history is the robber barons. Any suggestions on where to travel that would interest him? I assume there would be places in Boston, Philadelphia, Washington DC? I'm in Texas, so I'm kinda clueless.
I can think of two things off of the top of my head:
The Biltmore Estate is the largest private home in the country and was traditionally the residence of the Vanderbilt family. It is in western North Carolina. The Vanderbilts are one of the quintessential Robber Baron families, who became extremely rich through railroads and industry. They were big supporters of the Union during the Civil War, and ended up investing in the South afterwards in order to try to heal the country.
The other is the Johnstown Flood Memorial in Western Pennsylvania. If you are unaware, the Johnstown Flood was the largest "environmental" disaster in American history until Hurricane Katrina. Basically, a Robber Baron resort poorly maintained a dam which then broke, releasing the equivalent of the Mississippi river through Western Pennsylvania. 2200+ were killed, and the various industrialists involved were able to avoid any liability (through I sometimes see it cited as a reason labor supporter Andrew Berkman tried to kill industrialist Henry Clay Frick).
There’s also Newport, RI of course. Newport has beautiful set of mansions from the Gilded Age, included tours of many.
Jekyll Island Georgia was a robber baron vacation club for the super rich from 1886 to 1942. It's a nice place to visit for a couple of days.