Throughout America's great history, the industrial age has been one to reshape the entirety of the country's current state as well as the future. Of many leading men, industrialists they call them, such as John D Rockefeller and Henry Ford, emerged one right from the roots of Pittsburgh by the name of Andrew Carnegie. This man plays a key role in the country’s expansion of infrastructure and steel work making one of the most successful Americans economic wise. He shows the complete story of the American dream of “Rags to Riches” ("Andrew Carnegie" Almanac). This was the dream that Europeans, who were not so wealthy, could come over to the United States and start a new life, get a good paying job and become entrepreneurs. This dream made many …show more content…
All of the greatest and most successful businessmen have a single thing in common and that's the monopolization and ability to change their company into a tycoon or better yet, to completely monopolize their specific industry. This is what Carnegie accomplished turning him into one of the great industrialist of his era. He was able to take control of the steel business and turn himself into the poor boy from Europe into a wealthy high-class citizen of America ("Andrew Carnegie" Science). While creating his massive industry by using his efficient steel mill techniques, he had the ability to produce a mass number of steel for a fraction of the cost ultimately driving his competitors out of business. He would then buy up their mills, fix them up to cooperate with the Carnegie Steel Company standard and produce a larger quantity of steel than he previously did. This cycle repeated until Carnegie ran out of steel mills to buy. At this point he had the power to change and fluctuate his prices to create the consumer to buy his products for whatever cost he best saw fit. Since they were no more competition due to the buying out off all the competitors buy Carnegie, if consumers wanted steel they had to buy from the rate Carnegie was willing to sell it to them. This was the result of Carnegie's monopolization and production of his …show more content…
The factories he produced, the industry he created and his business monopolization are all ways Carnegie impacted the modern world. The factories he made more efficient with his ingenious thinking and productivity, his industry he created all with prior knowledge and developing the skills for the industry of steel he chose to invest in and finally he used business monopolization methods to then outdo his opponents and buy the competition out. Along with Carnegie, many others have changed the present way people view business and the business world although Carnegie's impact will be forever acknowledged. Future generations will study and learn about his actions as an industrial man through his vast steel empire he made throughout the United
Andrew Carnegie was one of the wealthiest men in America but his wealth didn’t come without hard work and dedication. Carnegie was born in “Dunfermline, Scotland on November 25, 1835” (Tyle). According to Laura B. Tyle, the invention of the weaving machine unfortunately pushed Carnegie’s family in to poverty “In 1848, Carnegie’s family left Scotland and moved to Allegheny City, Pennsylvania, where his father and eventually him worked in a cotton factory” (Tyle). After leaving the cotton factory “Carnegie became a messenger boy for the Pittsburgh telegraph office and eventually made his way up to telegraph operator” (Tyle). According to Laura B. Tyle “Thomas A. Scott, the superintendent of the western division of the Pennsylvania Railroad, made Carnegie his secretary at the age of eighteen.” Later, Carnegie took over Scott’s position of the railroad. Furthermore Carnegie “began to see that steel was going to replace iron and by 1873 he organized a steel rail company” (Tyle). According to Laura B. Tyle he continued to build his company when he “cut prices, drove out competitors,
Without Carnegie, the steel industry, and the second industrial revolution in general, would never have progressed as much as it did. Carnegie did what was necessary to make the steel industry more productive and more efficient, for less money. He was a shrewd, ruthless, businessman who’s aggressiveness made the steel, railroad, and oil industries so economically successful. These characteristics, though not always looked upon as nice or sympathetic, were sometimes necessary. He had paid his time as a poor factory boy, and now it was his turn to live comfortably and aid others less fortunate to work towards the same success.
The Carnegie Steel Company was a successful factory, which employed many hundred of workers. Andrew Carnegie, who was the owner of the company, wanted a large successful business, which he had achieved already, but he was always looking for ways to save and make more money. By 1892, unions had been formed
Andrew Carnegie was the example of the rags to riches tale to reality during The Gilded Age. Consequently, Carnegie´s view on wealth impacted workers by motivating them towards overcoming the cycle of the laborer, as well as influencing them on how to see success.
Many people at the time were living in poverty and there weren’t enough jobs that had sufficient pay to support a family. The steel industry was one that had the highest earning wages. The average daily wage at the time for iron and steel workers were $1.87, this is far above other industries that had a smaller amount of pay. Others can argue that because of the bad working conditions workers faced in the steel industries, Carnegie shouldn’t be considered a hero. But isn’t the goal of a business to create more jobs? Carnegie believed that it was proper to have completion between the rich and the poor because if there wasn’t, there would be no individuals capable enough to provide such jobs to further expand the essential needs of laborer and those of the economy (Doc 3). When Carnegie sold the Carnegie Steel company to J.P Morgan for $400 Million, the newly named company (U.S Steel) created numerous amounts of jobs employing 168,000 people.
It has been thoroughly debated whether Andrew Carnegie was a captain of his industry or a robber baron. He was a successful entrepreneur that created the Carnegie Steel Company in the late 1800s, a company that monopolized the production of steel. It has been ardently deliberated whether Andrew Carnegie was a robber baron who mistreated his workers and destroyed unions or that he was a captain of industry who paved the way for future steel companies. There are also many accomplished entrepreneurs in the world today that were much like Andrew Carnegie.
Let us first look at Mr. Andrew Carnegie. Carnegie was a mogul in the steel industry. Carnegie
Andrew Carnegie built his fortune out of nothing, clawing his way to the top and making his fortune by seeing the expanding usage of steel and quickly jumping on the opportunity, becoming one of the first and biggest steel producers in America, and later the world[2]. With this massive corporation
Carnegie earned a lot of money from his investments and quit his job with the railroad to focus on his business affairs, which included frequent traveling to Europe to sell railroad bonds. On one trip, Andrew Carnegie met the English inventor, Sir Henry Bessemer, who had invented a new process for making high quality steel efficiently and cheaply. After meeting Bessemer, Carnegie decided to concentrate his investments in the steel industry. He opened a steel company in Pittsburgh and adapted his steel mills to use the Bessemer process. The process allowed Andrew Carnegie to manufacture steel efficiently and cheaply. To increase manufacturing efficiency even further, Carnegie began the vertical and horizontal integration of the steel industry, which allowed Carnegie Steel Company to save money as it expanded. He quickly became one of the richest people in history due to his hard work before the creation of Carnegie Steel and during its operation. Andrew Carnegie sold Carnegie Steel Company to J.P. Morgan. Carnegie became a philanthropist in his retirement and gave away $350 million, which was about 90% of his fortune. He built
When Carnegie decided to go into business for himself, he chose the steel industry, but his success came at the expense of his workers. He decided he should own the entire supply chain from iron mines and coal fields (to supply his raw materials) to ships and railroads (to deliver his products). He expanded rapidly; not
In the movie, The Richest Man in the World, Andrew Carnegie played a major role in influencing the Industrial Revolution, which changed the economy of the US and the world forever. This era brought upon significant changes through economic developments that would not only change the ways of the economy but also the social aspect of society, especially within the cities where this growth was located. The shift from hand-made to machine-made products increased productivity and decreased costs. Through the innovations of the new forms of energy, such as iron, and then steel, establishments of factories began, competition between businessmen arose, and innovations of transportation in the city through railroads and bridges developed. The
The use of vertical integration by Carnegie was taking business away from other industries who needed citizens and companies to purchase their product. Carnegie became more popular and people started to buy his steel over others which had a negative effect on society as a whole while only improving his earnings and taking from other industries. Along with using vertical integration negatively, Carnegie was a robber baron. A robber baron is a business owner who tends to use ruthful tactics to gain more wealth. Carnegie Steel and many other business enterprises had people working for them in harsh conditions that were unsafe and unsanitary. Along with getting low pay, the workers were also forced to work 7 days a week for unbelievable hours. Carnegie’s factories were unsanitary, poorly ventilated and the employees were underpaid and overworked in unsafe environments. Overall, Carnegie abused his power of wealth to overrule his employees and used vertical integration to take from other industries, but without doing so he would not be as successful as he was.
It illustrated the poor conditions of labour, which contributed to industrialization and a labour union, which took care of fighting for benefits and the working conditions of these child labourers. Andrew Carnegie’s article (as seen in document D) proposes the idea of the rich using their wealth to improve society, as he believed that the fact that a person was rich, showed that he was more fit than others. Carnegie acknowledged that the living conditions were poor and wanted to help change that. This introduced industrialization into the Gilded Age. In the late 19th Century, Carnegie led the enormous expansion of the American steel
Andrew Carnegie Essay written by aliciareagan@neo.tamu.edu A man of Scotland, a distinguished citizen of the United States, and a philanthropist devoted to the betterment of the world around him, Andrew Carnegie became famous at the turn of the twentieth century and became a real life rags to riches story. Born in Dunfermline, Scotland, on November 25, 1835, Andrew Carnegie entered the world in poverty. The son of a hand weaver, Carnegie received his only formal education during the short time between his birth and his move to the United States. When steam machinery for weaving came into use, Carnegie's father sold his looms and household goods, sailing to America with his wife and two sons. At this time, Andrew was twelve, and his
Andrew Carnegie became known as one of America’s “builders”, because of his efforts that fueled the economy. Carnegie became such a wealthy man because of the vertical combination strategy he used, which the idea was first used by Gustavus Swift. With that strategy, he bought railroad companies and iron mines. Carnegie searched for ways to make better products cheaper, then he incorporated new machine and techniques that enabled him to track precise costs. He made any wise choice that would help him on the road to