Talk:List of richest Americans in history

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the List of richest Americans in history article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

This article was nominated for deletion on 5 December 2009 (UTC). The result of the discussion was no consensus.

This article is rated List-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.
It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

United States Mid‑importance

	United States portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject United States, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of topics relating to the United States of America on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the ongoing discussions. Template Usage Articles Requested! Become a Member Project Talk Alerts United StatesWikipedia:WikiProject United StatesTemplate:WikiProject United StatesUnited States articles
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

United States History Mid‑importance

This article is within the scope of WikiProject United States History, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the history of the United States on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.United States HistoryWikipedia:WikiProject United States HistoryTemplate:WikiProject United States HistoryUnited States History articles

Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

WikiProject United States History To-do:

Here are some tasks awaiting attention:

Cleanup : United States History articles needing attention
Infobox : United States History articles needing infoboxes
Stubs : Stub-Class United States History articles, Category:United States history stubs
Other :
- Place either of the following WikiProject banners on United States History-related articles and assess:
  - {{WikiProject United States History|class=|importance=}}
  - {{WikiProject United States|class=|importance=|UShistory=Yes|UShistory-importance=}}

Business: Accounting Mid‑importance

	Business portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Business, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of business articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.BusinessWikipedia:WikiProject BusinessTemplate:WikiProject BusinessWikiProject Business articles
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.
	This article is supported by the Accounting task force.

Lists Mid‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Lists, an attempt to structure and organize all list pages on Wikipedia. If you wish to help, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.ListsWikipedia:WikiProject ListsTemplate:WikiProject ListsList articles
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Economics Mid‑importance

	Business and economics portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Economics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Economics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.EconomicsWikipedia:WikiProject EconomicsTemplate:WikiProject EconomicsEconomics articles
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Finance & Investment Mid‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Finance & Investment, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of articles related to Finance and Investment on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Finance & InvestmentWikipedia:WikiProject Finance & InvestmentTemplate:WikiProject Finance & InvestmentFinance & Investment articles
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Lack of sources[edit]

How is the half-decade section determined? None of the three sources cited in the article mention specific periods of being on top. This entire section may have to go. Clarityfiend (talk) 19:48, 11 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Methodology[edit]

There is no explanation in the article of how a list like this is arrived at. It seems obvious that the wealth numbers are adjusted for inflation, but how? That is only one question that a good article would discuss. Another is the adjusted wealth numbers, not just ranking. A third is the nominal wealth. A fourth is how the nominal wealth is determined. Some of these are important. Zaslav (talk) 20:42, 22 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

How does this list compare wealth particularly those of the 18th and early 19th century? They are all described as wealthy but without numbers it's impossible compare. For example Bazil Gordon isn't on the list but was considered the one of wealthiest of the time. BaomoVW (talk) 20:19, 19 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

"Notably absent" in Fortune's Wealthiest Americans (1957) section[edit]

There is no apparent basis for the sentence listing "notably absent" people in the section on Fortune's list of wealthiest Americans. Some of these people were not yet wealthy in 1957, so their presence would have amounted to prescience.

I'll delete this sentence soon unless someone wants to take a shot at justifying its existence. 67.188.1.213 (talk) 03:59, 21 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"Wealth vs Contemporary GDP"[edit]

As far as I can tell, there's no reason to follow this metric. It is arbitrary and meaningless in terms of assessing actual wealth. Nothing else is measured this way. Unless anyone can provide a reason to keep using it, or at least voice a defense of it, I am going to rewrite/pare down the article significantly. Finnigami (talk) 06:19, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

No one has replied so I am probably going to move forward with this soon. I also recently had the thought that it might actually make a lot of sense to adjust based on contemporary GDP per capita. At least it would make much more sense than total GDP. However I imagine that would fall within the realm of original research so I will just be using normal inflation/PPP. Finnigami (talk) 05:54, 13 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I feel like people are going to get mad when I do this change but I can't not do it if no one responds so I'll give one more chance. Finnigami (talk) 03:21, 20 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]