Flashback: The First Forbes Rich List, 1918

Following on yesterday's story of the change in ownership at Forbes Media here's a 105-year old piece from the magazine. From Forbes, September 27, 2002:

The First Forbes Rich List, 1918
The First Rich List

This year, we mark the 20th anniversary of the Forbes 400 listing of America’s wealthiest, but Forbes did not produce its first rich list in 1982. It was, in fact, in 1918. Compiled by B.C. Forbes, it estimated the wealth of the 30 richest Americans and was based upon informed speculation by “the leading bankers in America” and information on income tax filings.

For those curious about how much–and how little–has changed, we present the complete text of the very first Forbes rich list and B.C. Forbes’ March 2, 1918, story in Forbes magazine.

More From B.C. Forbes: · Who Made Our First List · Three Women Among Richest Americans · Annual Incomes Of $5 Million · Frick Is Second Richest American · Carnegie Comes Next · Fortunes From Staple Products · Henry Ford’s Hundred Million · Five Pay Income Tax On $70 Million · Guggenheims Are Second Richest Family · A Few Possessors Of $60 Million · Schiff In The $50 Million Class · Swift Company Second In Business Volume · A Trifle Of Ten Millions Each Tables: · Our 30 Richest Americans · Sources of America’s 30 Greatest Fortunes · 206 Have $1 Million A Year Who are the 30 richest persons in America? This article gives the answer. It embodies not any guess of mine, but the consensus of opinion among the foremost bankers in the country. This can be accepted, therefore, as the most authoritative compilation ever made on this subject. The combined fortunes of the 30 richest total $3,680,000,000. The average individual fortune is $122,666,666. Not one of the 30 has less than $50,000,000. The total annual income of the 30 is figured at $184,000,000, of which John D. Rockefeller’s share is computed at $60,000,000, or almost half as much as the other 29 put together. The average income of these multimillionaires is $6,133,333. The smallest income is estimated at $2,500,000 a year. More From B.C. Forbes: · Three Women Among Richest Americans · Annual Incomes Of $5 Million · Frick Is Second Richest American · Carnegie Comes Next · Fortunes From Staple Products · Henry Ford’s Hundred Million · Five Pay Income Tax On $70 Million · Guggenheims Are Second Richest Family · A Few Possessors Of $60 Million · Schiff In The $50 Million Class · Swift Company Second In Business Volume · A Trifle Of Ten Millions Each Tables: · Our 30 Richest Americans · Sources of America’s 30 Greatest Fortunes · 206 Have $1 Million A Year Three Women Among Richest Americans There are three women on the list: Mrs. E. H. Harriman with $80,000,000 (the richest woman in the country), Mrs. Russell Sage with $60,000,000 and Mrs. Lawrence Lewis with $50,000,000, the last-named sum having descended from Henry H. Flagler of Standard Oil and Florida railroad fame. The aggregate amount of money in circulation in the United States is less than $5,000,000,000. If the 30 could turn their wealth into cash, they could absorb more than two-thirds of all the money in the country. That is a sensational and somewhat misleading way of expressing it. The total wealth of the United States is now reckoned at almost $250,000,000,000, so that the 30 richest control less than one-seventieth of it. The 30, however, exercise more than one-seventieth of the financial power of the United States, although they are far from being able to carry out arbitrarily many of the things alleged by demagogues and believed by many of the public. Seventy years ago a pamphlet published in New York put the number of millionaires in the Metropolis at only 19. Last year 206 Americans pleaded guilty to having annual incomes of $1,000,000 or more–and paid income taxes on them... ...MUCH MORE First posted May 5, 2014