The Titan by Theodore Dreiser, summary

American writer Theodore Dreiser’s 1914 novel chronicles the brutal financial struggles and personal quests of stockbroker Frank Algernon Cowperwood. The protagonist is based on the life of real-life transportation magnate Charles Yerkes. This book offers a profound analysis of the interactions between big business, urban institutions, and public opinion during the era of explosive industrial growth in the United States.

This work is part of the "Trilogy of Desire" cycle and occupies the second place in it. The narrative continues the events begun in the first novel of the series, "The Financier" (1912), and precedes the final part of the cycle, "The Stoic" (1947).

Chicago development and gas enterprises

After being released from a Philadelphia prison and rebuilding his fortune during the Panic of 1873, Frank Cowperwood traveled to Chicago. His young mistress, Eileen Butler, accompanied him. Cowperwood saw excellent investment opportunities in the rapidly growing Western city. He met Jud Addison, chairman of the Lake City National Bank. Cowperwood openly confided in the banker about his prison past, and Addison promised support.

Soon, Cowperwood opened the brokerage firm Peter Laughlin & Co. with the experienced stockbroker Peter Laughlin. Philadelphia lawyer Harper Steger secured a divorce for Cowperwood, paying his first wife, Lillian, two hundred thousand dollars. Frank married Eileen, and in 1878 they built a mansion on Michigan Avenue.

Cowperwood begins fighting for control of Chicago’s gas companies. The longtime owners of the city’s gas companies on the South, North, and West Sides refuse to sell him shares. Cowperwood then enlists the help of lawyers Henry de Soto Sippens, Judson Van Sickle, Kent McKibben, and Burton Stimson. With the help of political boss John McKenty, they secretly obtain concessions to supply gas to the suburban areas of Lake View and Hyde Park.

New gas plants and storage facilities are being built in the suburbs. Competitors attempt to block the work through the courts, accusing Sippens and Van Sickle of collusion and bribery of municipalities. However, Cowperwood seizes the initiative and secures a parallel concession from the Chicago City Council to supply gas to the entire city. Having threatened bankruptcy for the old companies, he forces their owners and his rival, Norman Schryhart, to buy out his shares for a huge sum.

Secular isolation and family discord

Despite their financial success, the Cowperwoods are shunned by Chicago society elite. Word of the Philadelphia scandal, the Butler family’s imprisonment, and their ruin quickly spread among the local elite. Mrs. Anson Merrill and Mrs. Norie Sims boycott Eileen’s parties. A lavish housewarming party in 1878 turns into a social disaster. Guests judge the hosts with a high degree of prejudice.

Cowperwood is indifferent to the opinions of high society. He amasses an art collection, purchasing works by Rousseau, Greuze, Gérôme, and Perugino, and has numerous love affairs. His infatuations include Mrs. Catridge, Ella Hubby, Josephine Ledwell, and Rita Sohlberg, the wife of the Danish violinist Harold Sohlberg.

An enraged Eileen learns of the affair with Rita through hired detectives. She arrives at the studio and brutally beats her rival. Cowperwood prevents a public scandal by smashing down the bedroom door with a chair. He silences Sohlberg by paying him five thousand dollars a year and sends the musician to Europe. Later, Cowperwood becomes close to his young secretary, Antoinette Novak.

The Battle for Urban Transport

Cowperwood shifted his attention to urban railways. He decided to merge the North and West Side horse-drawn trams and convert them to cable traction, adopting technology from San Francisco. With the help of Addison and Edwin Kaffrath, he gained control of the North Chicago Company, and then took over the West Chicago Company.

To speed up the railroad’s movement, Cowperwood needs tunnels under the river. He leases abandoned city tunnels on LaSalle and Washington Streets. When the owner of the Van Buren Street property, Redmond Purdy, asks a million dollars for his land, Cowperwood sends three hundred workers with dynamite at night and demolishes part of the building under cover of a disputed court ruling.

He established new transportation companies — the Consolidated Transportation Company and the Chicago Passenger Railway — and issued millions of dollars in new shares. These securities provided him with enormous income and placed Chicago’s transportation network under his sole control.

Revenge of enemies and love for Berenice

Cowperwood’s new love affairs earn him dangerous enemies. He begins an affair with Cecily Haguenin, and her father, Augustus Haguenin, publisher of the Press newspaper, openly opposes the financier. His affair with Florence Cochrane leads to a break with her father, Eymar Cochrane. When Cowperwood seduces Caroline Hand, her husband, the influential banker Hosmer Hand, becomes his implacable adversary. Hand allies himself with Schryhart, Merrill, and Timothy Arneel.

Eileen is deeply troubled by her husband’s infidelities. She begins to abuse alcohol and begins affairs with Polk Lind and Watson Skeet. In a fit of despair, Eileen slits her wrists with a paper knife in the mansion’s marble room, but Frank manages to save her.

In Louisville, Cowperwood meets Nannie Carter and her seventeen-year-old daughter, Berenice Fleming. He is captivated by Berenice’s intelligence, grace, and proud character. When scandal erupts in Mrs. Carter’s home with the sudden death of Major Hagenbeck, Cowperwood helps the family avoid public disgrace. To free Berenice from the shadow of her mother’s past, he takes on the family’s support and buys them a house in New York.

The fight for concessions and the final

Enemies attempt to ruin Cowperwood during the stock market panic surrounding the American Match Trust. However, Cowperwood uses his secret financial reserves through entrepreneurs Milard Bailey, Edwin Kaffrath, and Anton Wieder, buying up pledged shares at low prices and making millions. To boost his public profile, Cowperwood donates three hundred thousand dollars to the University of Chicago for the construction of an astronomical observatory.

Cowperwood plans to consolidate all transportation lines into a single system by issuing two hundred million dollars in stock. To achieve this, he requires fifty-year concessions. His rivals, Hand, Schryhart, Arneel, and the young publisher Truman Leslie McDonald, are launching a massive newspaper campaign against him.

Cowperwood attempts to push a bill to create a state commission through the state legislature in Springfield. He offers Governor Swanson a bribe of three hundred thousand dollars, but he refuses and vetoes it. Cowperwood then pushes for the passage of the Mears Act, which transfers the right to issue fifty-year franchises to the City of Chicago.

A financier offers aldermen bribes of up to thirty thousand dollars per vote. However, the new mayor, Walden Lucas, and the newspapers galvanize the public. Thousands of protesters take to the streets, carrying gallows signs. On December 12, 1897, under pressure from an angry crowd, the city council rejects the concessions plan.

Despite his political defeat, Cowperwood retained his transportation lines and wealth. Realizing that his options in Chicago were exhausted, Cowperwood decided to move his operations to New York and Europe. Berenice, impressed by his resilience and the scale of his personality, came to him in Chicago and agreed to become his companion.