With a net worth of sixty million dollars today, Christopher Gardner is an American businessman, author, stockbroker, motivational speaker, and philanthropist who struggled to raise his four year old son while being homeless and unemployed. The story of Gardner is similar to that of Andrew Carnegie’s. When Andrew Carnegie was only twelve years old, he started to work as a bobbin boy in a cotton factory and then as a telegrapher and personal assistant with Tom Scott in order to support his family. Just like Christopher Gardner, Andrew Carnegie worked his way to the top through hard work and he stayed there by giving back to the people and modernizing America. Due to that, Andrew Carnegie is considered a captain of industry because he was a hardworking
A captain of industry can be defined as ¨a business leader whose means of amassing a personal fortune contributed positively to the country in some way.” Andrew Carnegie was an ideal representation of a captain of industry, he was born poor, yet he rose the ranks and became a successful businessman who dedicated his fortune to good causes. Due to his success and innovation in the steel industry and his benevolent donations, Andrew Carnegie was a prosperous businessman who benefited lives across America.
During the late 19th century, there was a growth in industrialization. This brought new opportunities for the poor and the rich. For example, Carnegie helped build the steel industry in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, which made him one of the richest man in the world. As Carnegie gained more wealth, he questioned who money should be given to. Carnegie was both a Robber Baron and a Captain of Industry.
He is a fanatical about costs in that when he asked his friend Frank how much money did he make last month and he said he does not know, Carnegie said that he would get out of it if it happened to him. Also, when a new steel competitor called Allegheny Bessemer Steel. Carnegie was worried about his competitor’s production method which is the direct rolling process which would undercut his prices so he sent a notice warning railroads that their methods created defective rails that could cause fatal accidents to raise alarm and after he buried the company, he modified it to use the direct rolling process. According to “Homestead and Its Perilous Trades,” the workers worked 12 hours for $2.25 with cuts of 85 cents with pay ranging from $1.40 to $10 with ⅔ of the workers getting the pay and how the crude molten iron kills workers often. Carnegie wrote to Frick: “My idea….is always to shut down and suffer. Let them decide to go back to work.” Last but not least, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch said how Carnegie confessed he was a coward and lied and ran off to Scotland out of harm’s way to await the issue of the battle he was too weak to share and also did not say anything to stop the bloodshed but only said he had confidence in the managers of the
Andrew Carnegie owned and steel mill in Homestead, Pennsylvania that was slowly growing unfair, Carnegie put a man named Henry Frick in charge that wanted to lower people's pay and raise hours in the new contracts for the worker. The workers at the Homestead Steel mills were very upset so they went on strike. The strike was very violent and 16 people died. The main person responsible for the strike was Andrew Carnegie. He is to blame because he left to Switzerland to get away from all of this without having a new contract for his employees and he simply hired Frick to run the business without his supervision
Carnegie had his first job at the age of 12 working in a cotton factory, but still was smart enough to know that he still needed an education. He continued to go to highschool. At the age 14 Carnegie became a messenger boy in the local Pittsburgh telegraph office. His help was needed by Thomas A. Scott, the superintendent of the western division of the Pennsylvania Railroad. So Carnegie became his secretary. He became a philanthropist when he donated much of his money to good causes. He bought shares in the iron mills in factories that made sleeping cars and locomotives. He also was a captain of industry and invested in a company that built railroads and bridges . Carnegie has a university in chicago called university of chicago, as well as Carnegie Hall in New York City. Carnegie also formed a huge monopoly after he took over the steel industry. At the age of 30 Carnegie started his interest in the steel industry. With his interest in the steel industry Carnegie had amassed business interest in the iron works industry. He had built the largest steel corporation in the world. After this his philanthropic business career had begun around 1870. Even though Carnegie supported myriad projects and causes he is best known for his gifts of free public libraries buildings.Carnegie's steel had started off cheap. Suddenly bridges and skyscrapers were not only
Andrew Carnegie was a “robber baron” as shown in the way he acted towards the people who helped him reach the top and the terrible working environment that he subjected his workers to. He did various things in an attempt at overshadowing the awful things he did and positively alter his public image. His mentor, Thomas Scott, taught him the skills he would use to become the undisputed king of steel. Costs were the most important aspect of any business and reducing those required cutting wages, demanding 13 hour days and utilizing spies as a way to thwart possible strikes. Many years after Carnegie had gone out on his own, Scott met with him thinking that the years they spent together and all he had taught him would unquestionably result in help in his time of trouble.
How did he acquire his wealth? Carnegie frequently recognized as one of the wealthiest person ever. He made big bucks from oil business. He also led the growth of the American steel company in the late 19th century.
Andrew Carnegie was born on November 25, 1835 in Scotland and died August 11, 1919 in Massachusetts. He was an American industrialist who led the expansion of the steel industry. During Carnegie’s childhood, an economic downturn resulted in his family moving to Pennsylvania. At age 14, Carnegie became a messenger in a telegraph office, where he eventually became the secretary and telegrapher of Thomas Scott, a superintendent of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company. In 1859, he rose above Scott as superintendent of the railroad’s Pittsburgh division.
In the year of 1852, the industrious skill and dedication of a young twelve-year-old boy named Andrew Carnegie captivated Thomas A. Scott of the Pennsylvania Railroad. 1 Awed by his diligence, Scott immediately hired and made Carnegie his personal telegrapher.2 With a “rags to riches” background that inspired others to work hard for the American Dream, Carnegie knew exactly how the less fortunate felt when they were compared to the wealthy. Noticing how society achieved social, economic, and political equality before industrialization, Carnegie shared his intake on America’s momentous shift from an agrarian society to an industrial society in the late
There are two faces of industry and two sides of Carnegie. One in which he is an employer and the other in which he was a man who gave his money to the better good, in which he was a philanthropist and a hero (Doc. 10). Yes, Carnegie benefited off of the people who worked for him, but being the head of the industry, he worked hard to get there and in the same conditions as his workers do now, to reach those benefits, and to gain his wealth (background). The Oxford Press, in 1970, published Carnegie's philanthropy, his total givings overall was listed at $350,695,653, most of it went to universities and educational purposes (Doc. 9). The Carnegie Corporation's net assets in 2005 were listed at $2,167,000,000, the foundation is currently giving out one-hundred million dollars a year, most of it to education (Doc. 9). In the North American Review, 1889, Carnegie wrote an article concerning wealth. Carnegie wrote that the contrast between the palace of the millionaire and the cottage of the laborer with us today measures the change that had come with civilization (Doc. 2). In that same article, he wrote that the man who dies rich, dies disgraced (Doc.
The expansion of industries in the late 19th century allowed industrialists to revolutionize American economics. Revolutionary ideas included new business strategies like vertical and horizontal integration which was utilized by captain of industry Andrew Carnegie. Andrew Carnegie was a captain of industry, or a business leader who positively impacted American economics and society, because he implemented ingenious business strategies like vertical and horizontal integration and because he donated almost all of his profits to charities towards the development of learning and the arts.
This era shaped a new breed of men, leaders and entrepreneurs, who risked it all in search of fame and wealth and in the process lead the country into a new age of business. No man had a greater impact on this era than Andrew Carnegie. Andrew Carnegie was born in the year 1835 in Dunfermline, Scotland. At the age of thirteen, Carnegie and his family moved to America in search of economic opportunity. Carnegie immediately found employment and held a wide array of jobs until becoming a railroad division superintendent in 1858. While holding this position, he invested in coal, iron, oil, and railroad companies, allowing him to become a wealth man by the time he was in his thirties. In 1870, Carnegie entered the steel business and over the next few decades he would build up the Carnegie Steel Company. His business model was centered around self-reliance from the mining of resources to the transportation of the finished steel. Pictures taken of Carnegie's factories in the year 1900 show his system of transportation, a railroad running through the factory capable of transporting Carnegie steel to market (Carnegie Steel Company 1900). In the year 1901, Carnegie sold his business to J.P. Morgan for more than four hundred and eighty million dollars, making him the richest man of his day ("Andrew Carnegie"). As Carnegie retired, he turned toward philanthropy, giving away more than three hundred and fifty million dollars. His donations would lead to the construction of Vanderbilt Hall in New York City, the erection of libraries, and the foundation of hundreds of institution, dedicated to research in science and mathematics (Reams, Patrick, and David). In the year 1899, Carnegie had published a paper known as "The Gospel of Wealth." In it he outlined the duty of the wealthy to use their privilege to shape a
The business leaders of the Industrial Age were both robber barons and philanthropists, but were considered philanthropists because of how they positively impacted the U.S during this time. Some business leaders at times took money and treated their workers poorly which was considered being a robber baron. However, they also made large donations and invented many great things we still use today which makes the business leaders of the Industrial Age philanthropists.
Andrew Carnegie was a famous industrialist. When Carnegie was 13, he and his family moved to the United States from Scotland. They came to the United States very poor. Carnegie started as a bobbin boy at the age of 13, changing spools of thread in a cotton mill 12 hours a day, for 6 days a week. He was paid a low wage of $1.20 per week. Carnegie slowly moved his way up with jobs and soon he got a job in a sleeping car company. This led to Carnegie’s early success in the railroad business. During the Civil War, Carnegie invested in oil, worked in transportation for the U.S. War Department and became interested in the steel and iron business. When the Civil War ended, he focused more on the steel business and decided to pursue a career in the