Andrew Carnegie Is Not A Hero Essay

It’s the late 1800’s early 1900’s industrialization is picking up and three main guys are rising to the top. One of these men is Andrew Carnegie. Carnegie is known greatly for his countless donations for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Most hail this man a hero but is he really? If you look back to this period of time you might find some interesting facts. One of the most interesting being, Andrew Carnegie is not a hero, he took money from his employees to give to people who hadn’t worked for it, he had very firm beliefs about the rich and how they should spend their money, not only that but he also made those donations mainly to get his name out there to make people think he was a good guy! Andrew Carnegie is best known for his donations, but how did he get all this money? The answer is simple, he took a lot of this money from his employees. He gave out multiple wage cuts to all his employees that left

Carnegie but he thought that more people should give to the poor. Andrew Carnegie believed that the rich should not spend the money on themselves, nor pass the money down to their children. He thought the only good way to use riches was to give to those who, even though poor, may not have deserved it. Many people are revolved around family, they want their family name to carry on and their children to succeed, so if they have the money, they want to give it to their kids. Andrew Carnegie discriminated against this idea, he believed it to be misguided, as Carnegie himself states, in North American Review, “Why should men leave great fortunes to their children? If this is done from affection, is this not misguided affection?” (Document B). Carnegie only had one child, a daughter that would inherit the Carnegie fortune when Andrew died. Perhaps Carnegie didn’t like that idea because he didn’t like the idea of someone else having his wealth. One example of this is that Carnegie wanted to get his name out into the