Industrial Transformation: Economic Development between 1865-1900 The economic transformation is often times viewed as a threat to America’s democracy due to many reasons. The main reason being, to me, that industrialist were becoming grossly wealthy, and they were making breakthrough’s in just about every field available to them in that time frame. There were some major name that are still refereed to today in this time period. There was J.P. Morgan, "The Banker", J.D. Rockefeller, "The Oil Baron", Cornelius Vanderbilt, "The Rail King", and Andrew Carnegie, "T