The second Industrial Revolution overlaps the use of robber barons. Coal had been used in applications like trains and engines before the period, and coal power plants opened after the term had been coined. Coal use was not, in and of itself tied to the term.
Robber barons are just a more evocative way of framing the period, similar to calling it the Gilded Age, but all the terms are roughly talking about the same time period.
Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 4 days ago
So…we’re still in the Robber Barron era then?