Andrew Carnegie was a Scottish American industrialist who led the enormous expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century. He built a leadership role as a philanthropist for America and the British Empire. During the last 18 years of his life, he gave away to charities, foundations, and universities about $350 million – almost 90 percent of his fortune. His 1889 article proclaiming "The Gospel of Wealth" called on the rich to use their wealth to improve society, and it stimulated a wave of philanthropy. Carnegie was born in Dunfermline, Scotland, and immigrated to the United States with his very poor parents in 1848. Carnegie started work as a telegrapher and by the 1860s had investments in railroads, railroad sleeping …show more content…
The investment proved a great success and a source of profit for Woodruff and Carnegie. The young Carnegie continued to work for the Pennsylvania's Tom Scott, and introduced several improvements in the service. In spring 1861, Carnegie was appointed by Scott, who was now Assistant Secretary of War in charge of military transportation, as Superintendent of the Military Railways and the Union Government's telegraph lines in the East. Carnegie helped open the rail lines into Washington D.C. that the rebels had cut; he rode the locomotive pulling the first brigade of Union troops to reach Washington D.C. Following the defeat of Union forces at Bull Run, he personally supervised the transportation of the defeated forces. Under his organization, the telegraph service rendered efficient service to the Union cause and significantly assisted in the eventual victory. Carnegie later joked that he was "the first casualty of the war" when he gained a scar on his cheek from freeing a trapped telegraph …show more content…
output of steel exceeded that of the UK, and Carnegie owned a large part of it. Carnegie's empire grew to include the J. Edgar Thomson Steel Works,, Pittsburgh Bessemer Steel Works, the Lucy Furnaces, the Union Iron Mills, the Union Mill, the Keystone Bridge Works, the Hartman Steel Works, the Frick Coke Company, and the Scotia ore mines. Carnegie, through Keystone, supplied the steel for and owned shares in the landmark Eads Bridge project across the Mississippi River at St. Louis, Missouri . This project was an important proof-of-concept for steel technology, which marked the opening of a new steel
Despite the negative encounters of Andrew Carnegie’s Steel Company, the exploration and exchange of Carnegie Steel is that the steel was cheap. This had a positive impact on the United States because steel fed national growth, steel meant more jobs, national prestige, and a higher quality of life for
Third and lastly, look at how both men treat their workers and customers in order to achieve the most possible profit for their company. Let us first look at Mr. Andrew Carnegie. Carnegie was a mogul in the steel industry. Carnegie developed a system known as the vertical integration. This method basically cuts out the ‘middle man’.
Andrew Carnegie was a man who was born poor, but wanted to change many lives for those who were like him. Since he was able to walk, he started to work he was a bobbin boy in Pittsburg. Carnegie would work 12 hours a day to
Andrew Carnegie, was a strong-minded man who believed in equal distribution and different forms to manage wealth. One of the methods he suggested was to tax revenues to help out the public. He believed in successors enriching society by paying taxes and death taxes. Carnegie’s view did not surprise me because it was the only form people could not unequally distribute their wealth amongst the public, and the mediocre American economy. Therefore, taxations would lead to many more advances in the American economy and for public purposes.
The roots of Carnegie's internal conflicts were planted in Dunfermline, Scotland, where he was born in 1835, the son of a weaver and political radical who instilled in young Andrew the values of political and economic equality. His family's poverty, however, taught Carnegie a different lesson. When the Carnegies emigrated to America in 1848, Carnegie determined to bring prosperity to his family. He worked many small jobs which included working for the Pennsylvania Railroad where he first recognized the importance of steel.
Andrew Carnegie believes in a system based on principles and responsibility. The system is Individualism and when everyone strives towards the same goals the system is fair and prosperous. Carnegie’s essay is his attempt to show people a way to reach an accommodation between individualism and fairness. This system can only work if everyone knows and participates in his or her responsibilities. I will discuss Carnegie’s thesis, his arguments and the possible results of his goals.
To understand Carnegie before he became a wealthy man, he grew up poor working for $1.20 a week (Document LV). At the age of 50 years, he took a risk by investing in a package delivery company. His gamble paid off and he gained money to start his company, Carnegie’s Steel Company. Eventually, his company grew and caused
In Harold C. Livesay’s Andrew Carnegie and the rise of Big Business, Andrew Carnegie’s struggles and desires throughout his life are formed into different challenges of being the influential leader of the United States of America. The book also covers the belief of the American Dream in that people can climb up the ladder of society by hard work and the dream of becoming an influential citizen, just as Carnegie did.
Carnegie joined Thomas Scott during the civil war and developed a military graphing system. After this he advanced from telegraphy going through railroading and bridge building until he found himself in steelmaking, where he would make his profit. Due to his practical and ambitious ways, Carnegie wanted to dominate the steel industry, leading him to be tyrannical and a dishonest. Carnegie’s talent lied within promoting and selling steel rather than the technical part of steelmaking. Much like Rockefeller, Carnegie was also philanthropic because he gave much of his money away to build libraries, hospitals, parks, etc.
In the documents titled, William Graham Sumner on Social Darwinism and Andrew Carnegie Explains the Gospel of Wealth, Sumner and Carnegie both analyze their perspective on the idea on “social darwinism.” To begin with, both documents argue differently about wealth, poverty and their consequences. Sumner is a supporter of social darwinism. In the aspects of wealth and poverty he believes that the wealthy are those with more capital and rewards from nature, while the poor are “those who have inherited disease and depraved appetites, or have been brought up in vice and ignorance, or have themselves yielded to vice, extravagance, idleness, and imprudence” (Sumner, 36). The consequences of Sumner’s views on wealth and poverty is that they both contribute to the idea of inequality and how it is not likely for the poor to be of equal status with the wealthy. Furthermore, Carnegie views wealth and poverty as a reciprocative relation. He does not necessarily state that the wealthy and poor are equal, but he believes that the wealthy are the ones who “should use their wisdom, experiences, and wealth as stewards for the poor” (textbook, 489). Ultimately, the consequences of
Andrew Carnegie was born November 25, 1835 in Dunfermline, Scotland. He was born to a family of weavers, a prominent occupation in his hometown. In 1847, the increased linen production from steam powered looms caused Carnegie’s father to lose his job. Carnegie’s mother went to work trying to provide for the family. This is when Carnegie says “I began to learn what poverty meant, it was burnt into my heart then that my father had to beg for work. And then and there came the resolve that I would cure that when I got to be a man.” (Carnegie, 1920)
Industrialists Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick could not have come from more different backgrounds. Carnegie was born in the Scottish town of Dunfermline to a very poor family in 1835. When he was 12 years old, his father, a weaver, decided to move the family to the United States in search of better prospects, arriving at what was then the municipality of Allegheny, Pennsylvania, now part of Pittsburgh’s North Side. By that time, Pittsburgh was already known as a major center for the production of steel and other metals. In 1853, at the age of 18, Carnegie was hired as a telegraph operator for the Pennsylvania Railroad, and became a protégé of Thomas A. Scott, who would soon rise
Andrew Carnegie, the “King of Steel”, the benevolent employer, the giant of industry, was among the greatest influences of the second industrial revolution. It is sometimes questioned whether Carnegie was the ruthless, sneaky steel tyrant some made him out to be, or the generous, benevolent education benefactor he appeared to be. I believe him to be a combination of both, but more so the great giant of industry.
Andrew Carnegie was born on November 25th, 1835 in Dunfermline, Scotland. His father was a hand loom weaver and Chartist. Carnegie believed in the importance of birthplace. “I was supremely so in my birthplace. Where one is born is very important, for different surroundings and traditions appeal to and stimulate different latent tendencies in the child.1” Scotland's depression in 1848 caused the family to move to the United States.
Carnegie saw how bad the wooden railroads were, so he proceeded to slowly replace them with iron ones. Carnegie's charm, perception, and hard work led to becoming one of the world's most famous men of the time, and led to the first corporation in the world with a market capitalization in excess of one billion when he sold his companies to John Morgan who called them United States Steel Corporation.