How Did The Steel Industry Affect The Economy During The Gilded Age

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

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.

     Let us first look at Mr. Andrew Carnegie. Carnegie was a mogul in the steel industry. Carnegie

Near the last decades of the 19th century, America’s industrial economy skyrocketed. As these industrial leaders like Carnegie and Rockefeller not only lead the expansion through their respective industries, but revolutionized businesses while crushing free-market competition in the process. As

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

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

Carnegie was very poor during his childhood, and this will cause him to try a variety of jobs that inevitably led to his steel empire. “Andrew Carnegie was born November 25, 1835 in Dunfermline, Scotland. His father, William Carnegie, a prosperous handloom weaver at the time of Andrew’s birth, was unable to compete with the new technology of steam loomers and fell into poverty as Andrew grew older,” (UXL biographies). In 1848, Andrew and his family immigrated to Allegheny City, Pennsylvania, and Andrew got a job at a

During the first Gilded Age that occurred in the late 1800s, economic growth was at an all-time high. At this time, the wages that were given to American were at an increased rate compared to that of the wages that were given in Europe. Due to this, an abundant amount of European immigrants came over to the United States because of this inflated wage. These economic advances were due to that of several technological advances that had come about in this time. The industrial production skyrocketed, which, in turn, made for increased economic wealth for Americans.

One factor during the Gilded Age that changed American business and labor practices was the abundance of supplies. The United States had all the raw materials it could ever ask for like: coal, oil, iron ore, copper, lead, and timber. Why was this important to the U.S? This kept the U.S. from having to purchase these things from foreign countries. The United States also had an abundance of labor supply between 1865 and 1900. This gave U.S. factories a steady supply of cheap labor, there was always more workers

By the middle of the 19th century, the Industrial Revolution was changing the face and culture of the United States. Demand for raw materials and new inventions was increasing. From 1800-1850, territories claimed by the United States had grown to stretch from the East Coast to the West Coast. The spirit of “Manifest Destiny”, the California Gold Rush, and the promise of rich new land, ripe with raw materials and opportunity drew settlers ever westward. Following the invention of the steam engine, trains were becoming very important to the expansion of civilization and its infrastructure. Trains and the railroads they ran on soon became the lifeblood of industrialized economic development across the country. Public and private partnerships were formed with railroad companies to provide them with vast amounts of investment funding. Within a few decades, the railroad companies and their transcontinental railroads ushered in the Gilded Age and changed American society forever.

The Westward expansion provided settlers with fertile lands and according to the Homestead Act, settlers did not require to be an American citizen to fill for lands. Farmers farmed extensively, which led to smaller agriculture’s share of the economy. Although the country was producing more than its consumption, statistically; reflect a decline in the importance of farming, the farmers exported the excess. However, the migration from rural to urban areas increased due to the dominance of wage labor and the rise of industrial America, such as railroads. At this era, the whole economy seemed like to revolve around railroads, every company needs railroad to export/import goods, or accessible transportation, and it was a major supplement that powered the industrial economy. The steel rails accounted for an enormous percentage of the steel production in the United States, also a major consumer of coal and lumber, opened an unlimited

“As the growth of industrial development increased so did the accumulation of massive industries and corporations”. This had changed The United States of America into being urbanized instead of being a rural area. Then many businessmen like Andrew Carnegie, John D Rockefeller, and Cornelius Vanderbilt had big industrial tycoons which had a massive benefit for them and for their society because they had an increase in mass production which ultimately changed the face of the United States of America from being a rural society into being an urban society.

Industrialization was very beneficial to American business owners. Following the civil war, industries transformed into modern powerhouses. Big business owners who seized power in these industries became even bigger. New inventions led to new thriving industries. Iron, for example, was replaced with ultra-strong steel. Andrew Carnegie built the biggest steal business in the world. One main reason why steel was in such