Izabela Castro
Mr. Miraya
Honors History 11- 1A
10 September 2016
The Three Billionaires of America During the 19th century, the three well-known billionaires were, John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, and J. Pierpont Morgan. Each of these men are well known for both their wealth and achievements. Each man contributed towards America to help it grow and develop. These three billionaires had their own specialty that developed America. John. D Rockefeller made billions of dollars out of oil, while Andrew Carnegie also made billions on steel. Finally, the third billionaire, J. Pierpont Morgan, made billions of dollars out of banking and finance. The man that had the greatest lasting impact on America was John D. Rockefeller. The first billionaire in America was Rockefeller. Rockefeller grew up in a poor atmosphere. When he was a teenager, he had a very low job, a clerk in a Cleveland shipping firm. However, since he lived a poor life, he was able to save his money. As years went by a man named Edwin Drake
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Carnegie grew up in a similar life style as Rockefeller. Him and his family was very poor, and his first job was working at a cotton mill, where earned $1.20 per week. Carnegie later got a promotion as a bookkeeper. Years later, he was also a telegrapher. Later he reached a job that he enjoyed which was a personal secretary for a railroad company. During the civil war, he would help transport soldiers to the hospital. He earned a small amount of money and he soon invested it in steel. As he got more money, he would buy other railroad companies and iron mines. When he owned these companies, he would reduce his costs and produce cheaper steel. His company was Carnegie Steel Company, which he later sold to J.P Morgan for 500 million dollars. Before his death, Carnegie also donated his money to public foundations. He built Carnegie-Mellon University and Carnegie Hall, which is well known to this day in New
Like Rockefeller, Carnegie also bought out all the struggling competitors. He even bought the companies that create the raw materials for steel. He owned coal mines in West Virginia, bought large deposits ore, and transported the ore in his own ships across the great
It is illustrated in document 1 that he started from being super poor to being a millionaire over the course of about 30 years. This shows how hard Carnegie had worked during those years. (Doc 1) Another illustration of Carnegie’s achievement is a graph by an artist named, Robert Nedronida. The graph depicts a map of all the properties that Carnegie purchased with description of each of every one of them. This demonstrates Carnegie as a hero because all the companies he owned serves a purpose of helping people utilize sources that we use today. For instance, one of his companies called Carnegie’s Oliver Iron Mining Co. has influenced how we use oil to pave the roads, to make things, and to heat our homes. In addition, he gave people jobs and opportunities by owning all these companies. (Doc
Andrew Carnegie is without a doubt one of the most famous rags-to-riches stories. He came to America from Scotland at 12 years old in 1448. His family immigrated to avoid poverty. When he matured, Carnegie took on a railroad assistant job and in doing this, became essential to the railroad business. Eventually, he was able to construct and build his own steel company named Carnegie Steel Corporation.
After selling his tycoon to J. P. Morgan in 1901, Carnegie decided at the age of 65 to dedicate the rest of his life to helping others. Though he had done much work earlier in his life with the donation of libraries, he extended his efforts beyond this. Carnegie funded many efforts to promote education, such as donating to the New York Public Library in order to fund the creation of new branches of the library. Additionally, Carnegie established the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and created the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, both of which were made possible by Carnegie’s willingness to donate his life’s earnings for the good of society. These actions classify Andrew Carnegie as a capital of industry due to his generosity and desire to return the favor of his success to his community and the people who assisted him in getting to his prosperous position in
Carnegie not only got his start as a young Irish immigrant working as a railroad telegraph operator, his first major corporation was the Keystone Telegraph Company, in which he acquired the Pacific and Atlantic Telegraph Company. Carnegie thought of giving up on business after having moderate success, but on a trip to England in 1872, he met with Henry Bessemer and saw his plans for steel. (Carnegie
He sold the company to J. P. Morgan, for which he personally received $250 million of the $492 million Morgan paid for it. He supported and began many corporations and institutions. Many positive establishments were created only because of his generous donations. To this day many people are still benefiting from the large Carnegie fortune.
Born on November 25, 1835, in Dunfermline, Scotland, Andrew Carnegie started his life in the United States working at a telegraph office. During his time in the work of telegraphs, he started his life of going from poor and low class to rich and high class (known as “rags to riches”). In the 1860’s carnegie began investing into many things finding great outcomes in return. In the 1870’s he began his work with steel. By consulting with, leading steel producer in Great Britain, Henry Bessemer he was able to learn how to manufacture high quality steel that would require the least amount of money for production (McGuire, William, and Leslie Wheeler). He created the Carnegie Steel Corporation soon to become one of the wealthiest men in America in the 19th century. Because of his company and steel production, Carnegie brought the United States up as the leading steel producer, exceeding Great Britain (McGuire, William, and Leslie Wheeler). His company completely changed the way steel was produced in America by providing a easier, quicker, and more effective way of
Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller were two of the Captains of Industry because of their innovations and philanthropy. John D. Rockefeller was a huge philanthropist because he donated a plethora of money to different colleges, and organizations. He donated 75 million dollars to the University of Chicago. He also founded Rockefeller Institute of Medicine ( Rockefeller University), and donated 50 million dollars to that Institute. He also donated to the Rockefeller foundation, which received 235 million dollars.
Rockefeller started as a bookkeeper and rose to start the Standard Oil Company in 1870. He was the first man to become a billionaire and was in the process of becoming the wealthiest man in the world. Vanderbilt began his career as a deckhand on his father’s ferry boat. He soon saved enough and purchased his own boat and continued his career in the beneficial Hudson River traffic. The profits that he made from this went to investing into railroads, which eventually led him to owning a number of railroads that joined the Grand Central Railroad. Carnegie started his career in the factories at the age of 13. He worked 12 hour days, six days a week. He only made $2 a week, but managed to become a self-made man. He managed to move up in the railroad business from starting out as a telegraph operator. He then turned his attention to the production of iron goods, which led him to starting the billion-dollar industry, Federal Steel Company. Morgan began his career in his father’s bank in London. He moved to America and became the founder of J.P. Morgan & Company. Viewed by others as arrogant and overbearing, Morgan arranged many of the largest financial deals of the Industrial Era, such as the creation of United States Steel.
Carnegie was born in 1835 in Scotland’s early capital, Dunfermline. He was the oldest child of Will Carnegie and Margaret Carnegie. In 1848, after a string of economic hardships, the Carnegies packed their belongings and immigrated to America. After settling in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, the Carnegie family still struggled to make their financial ends meet, so Carnegie joined the work force. By 24, he was the superintendent of the Pennsylvania Railroad company. Here, he realized how imperative iron and steel were to the American economy and began producing them. With unflinching determination, Carnegie founded Carnegie Steel, where he was able to promote cost efficiency and innovation, and has been credited with industrialization and mass utilization of the Bessemer process, who was the first to convert pig iron into steel. In 1901, after acquiring mass fortune in the steel industry, Carnegie sold his company to J. P. Morgan for $480 million dollars. This decision allowed Carnegie to become the richest man in the world. After his retirement from the business, Carnegie began his devoted career as a philanthropist. He began donating free libraries to countries all around the world, including the Unites States and his birthplace of Dunfermline. He also founded many trusts and foundations, such as the Carnegie Corporation of New York, which were devoted to improving society and continued to survive him after his death in August of
Andrew Carnegie was born on November 25, 1835 in Scotland. His family came to the United States in 1848 and settled in Allegheny, Pennsylvania. He worked as a bobbin boy in a cotton mill. He then worked for Western Union and the Pennsylvania Railroad. In 1865, Carnegie organized the Carnegie Steel Company. This launched the steel industry in Pittsburgh. In 1901, he sold the company to J.P. Morgan for $480 million. He devoted the rest of his life to his philanthropic activities and writing. During his lifetime, Carnegie gave away over $350 million. He stated publicly that the rich have a moral obligation to give away their fortunes. In 1889, he wrote The Gospel of Wealth. He stated that all personal wealth beyond that required to supply the
The richest man in the world, in his time, was Andrew Carnegie. His story of success was truly one of rags to riches. After coming to the U.S. from Scotland as part of a working-class family, he moved from job to job, eventually becoming more influential and gaining a large sum of money. Soon he was using his wealth to contribute to many public services, such as libraries and schools. Andrew Carnegie's life and actions have left a long-standing legacy and have contributed greatly to the American way of life, particularly toward education.
John D. Rockefeller is a man that comes from humble beginnings. He was born July, 8 1839 in Richford, New York to a low income family, but eventually rose to become the first American billionaire. As a child, he was an extremely hard worker, and was always trying to do what he can to help bring money home, whether it be doing odd jobs for his neighbors or raising turkeys. When he was 16 and old enough to get an actual job, he became a clerk for a coal and grain company in Cleveland, Ohio. This was such a monumental moments in his life, that he celebrated the anniversary of his hiring every year thereafter. Though it was a steady job that brought home a nice sized paycheck, Rockefeller knew that he could do better, so on January 1, 1859 he and Maurice Clark found a commissions firm that would be the cornerstone of Rockefeller’s business endeavors from there on out.
Carnegie came from humble beginnings, but through his extraordinary vision he would become the richest man on the planet and would display idealized influence and inspirational motivation through his philanthropic endeavors, inspiring the nation’s richest to give to charities through the use of foundations. Carnegie was born in Scotland and moved to U.S with his family in 1848 when he was 12 years old. His father attempted to start a weaving business in America, but failed, leaving Carnegie to work in a mill for $1.20 a week (Goldin, 1988, p. 13). Carnegie would go to on to build a fortune worth almost $450 million by making investments and building a technologically advanced steel making process at a time when the U.S was using steel
One of his most prominent business ventures was the Keystone Bridge Company, a bridge-building company that was founded in 1865. Having established business contacts through the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, Carnegie was able to build his first steel plant in order to begin building bridges with steel in lieu of iron and wood, which were less economically constructive materials at the time (Nackliss, 575-605). Essentially, this was the way in which Carnegie had exposed himself to the steel industry.