Atlas Shrugged/Dagnys Father

Dagny's father (who is unnamed in Atlas Shrugged) was the president of Taggart Transcontinental prior to James Taggart. In Section132 we learn he was "astonished and proud" of his daughter, but sad for her as well, and apparently not overly supportive of her desire to work for the railroad, though he did nothing to stop her.

There is no indication that Dagny's parents failed in their parenting: they were kind, loving, and did not stand in her way or attempt to change her decisions. There is no fuel here for a Freudian interpretation of Dagny's character, such as, 'her drive to achieve is merely the attempt to earn the love she wanted but was denied as a child.' Greatness, in Rand's heroes, is not the attempt to compensate for some shortcoming; it is an expression of values, not an expression of their absence.

Dagny's father is mentioned in:

 Section132
 Section152