Profile: Who was Andrew Carnegie?
Excerpt 1: from “Andrew Carnegie,” From American Experience, produced by PBS. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carnegie/peopleevents/pande01.html
In 1870, Carnegie would embrace a new steel refining process being used by Englishman Henry Bessemer to convert huge batches of iron into steel, which was much more flexible than brittle iron. Carnegie threw his own money into the process and even borrowed heavily to build a new steel plant near Pittsburgh called the Carnegie Steel Company. Carnegie was ruthless in keeping down costs and managed by the motto "watch costs and the profits take care of themselves." From the years of 1870-1900 Carnegie went on to make unparalleled amounts of money.
"I think Carnegie's genius was first of all, an ability to foresee how things were going to change," says historian John Ingram. "Once he saw that something was of potential benefit to him, he was willing to invest enormously in it." Carnegie was unusual among the industrial captains of his day because he preached for the rights of laborers to unionize and to protect their jobs. However, Carnegie's actions did not always match his rhetoric. Carnegie's steel workers were often pushed to long hours and low wages. When the workers of Carnegie Steel Company began to strike against their poor working conditions in Homestead, Pennsylvania, in 1892, a bloody conflict ensued. When the union asked for a wage increase, Carnegie and his chairman, Henry Frick, counteroffered by decreasing their wages. Carnegie and Frick wanted to break up the union, which they thought was hindering their ability to make more money. After the union workers refused to accept this offer, Frick locked all employees out, putting up a 12-foot high barbed wire fence around the plant and hiring 300 Pinkerton Agency agents (a security guard company) to secure the plant and intimidate workers with rifles. During a confrontation between strikers and the Pinkerton agents, many strikers were killed after shots were fired. Carnegie’s support of Frick’s actions during the strike, and the resulting crumble of the steel union after the events, are events that would forever hurt Carnegie's reputation and haunt the man.
Fond of saying that the man who dies rich dies disgraced, Carnegie turned his attention to giving away his fortune later in life. He detested charity, and instead put his money to use helping others help themselves. That was the reason he spent much of his collected fortune on establishing over 2,500 public libraries as well as supporting institutions of higher learning. By the time Carnegie's life was over, he gave away 350 million dollars.
Excerpt 2: from Roland Marchand, “The Homestead Strike of 1892” published by The History Project, UC Davis. http://historyproject.ucdavis.edu/lessons/view_lesson.php?id=17
On July 1, 1892, Andrew Carnegie combined the vast holdings of his steel empire to form one monolithic company: The Carnegie Steel Company Co., Limited. It provided over one quarter of America's steel output each year, and was valued at over 25 million dollars. Steel meant more jobs, national prestige, and a higher quality of life for many. For Carnegie's workers, however, cheap steel meant lower wages, less job security, and the end of creative labor. Carnegie's drive for efficiency cost steel workers their unions and control over their own labor. To the casual observer, a Carnegie steel mill was chaos. Shouting, flames, noise, and danger ruled the mills and there was little protective gear for workers. For Carnegie though, efficiency, not safety, was of paramount importance.
The man at the head of this mammoth company was one of America's most amazing success stories. Born in Scotland in 1835, Andrew Carnegie came to America penniless at the age of 13. Within 30 years, his yearly income totaled almost 2 million dollars. For most of his life, Carnegie maintained the image of a philanthropist, a friend of the working man, and one of the most enlightened business leaders of the era. Yet it was not good will that made the Carnegie Company the richest steel company in America and enabled Carnegie to swallow up competitors. The steel industry, like most other major industries, was highly competitive during most of the late 19th century. To a large degree, Carnegie succeeded in this environment by ruthlessly cutting his production costs in order to undersell his competitors.