Andrew Carnegie Is Not A Captain Of Industry Essay

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, during the climax of the American Industrial Revolution, there was a small group of men who owned the major businesses and were leaders of their industries. They owned factories, railroads, banks, and even created company towns for the sole purpose of housing their workers. Due to the efforts of these few men, the U.S. economy became the envy of the world, and America became a leading world power. They provided the public with products that were in high demand for reasonable prices, and opened their markets to countries overseas. Although many people believe the early industrialists were Robber Barons who exploited the poor, these great men were truly Captains of Industry who created new ways of doing

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.

Besides the people who thought Andrew Carnegie was a captain of industry others thought the opposite. He was a rich robber baron who was a “Robbin’ Hood, who would steal from the working man to give to himself. He gave wealth to the poor was true, but it was not his own money, it was the money from the left over low wages of the workers while keeping his own. People believed that he was a robber baron giving away money that was not really his. This made him a robber baron even though having the captain of industry

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

Perhaps the most controversial of Andrew Carnegie’s qualities is his belief in Social Darwinism. The English philosopher Herbert Spencer convinced Carnegie that it wasn’t bad to be successful. It was “survival of the fittest” in the business world and there was no reason for Andrew Carnegie to feel guilty for obtaining more wealth. Throughout Carnegie’s life, he displayed his firm belief in the certainty of competition. In fact, he was afraid of competition and did all he could to obstruct or completely remove it when it came to his

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,

As young as 33, Carnegie was pulling in an annual income of $50,000 a year, a huge amount at that time, and this was enough for him. Carnegie was a firm believer that anyone could make it to the top, and that it was the wealthys’ duty to help the poor work towards a more comfortable life. Carnegie said that “the man who dies rich, dies disgraced.” This is a greedy, unselfish philosophy that a robber baron could not conceive.

Andrew Carnegie was a firm believer in idea of individualism. That everyman must work and rise on his own ambition alone, that each man for themselves. In other word, he did not believe in the communist thought of working

In document D it shows that Carnegie was lowering wages by 20% while he was just building libraries with the money that could be going to the hardworking people. Andrew Carnegie did not care about the people working for him at all or else he would have recognized that they are poor and need all the money he can give them, instead of taking their money and using it on libraries. Also in document D it talks about how people working in his steel mill were killed, and was directly related to the violence within the steel mill. If Carnegie truly cared about these people he would try to calm the violence in his mill, and he could stop being violent towards them setting a better example. From not giving his workers their well earned money and setting an example of violence Andrew Carnegie shows that he does not care about others. This shows that he was not a hero because not caring about these people that worked for him showed through the death of innocent

Captains of industry were defined as the business leaders whose means of amassing a personal fortune contributed positively to the country or society in some way. Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller were considered to be captains of industry because with their profits from either their steel company or standard oil company, they give back to the society instead of themselves. They believed in the idea that people give in to you, in which you must give out as well. They established many charitable foundations that allowed them to become well known philanthropist and made them distinguishable from the rubber barons.

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

For Carnegie, there was a need to balance between the individual and fairness in order for society to function correctly. That is to say that those who enjoy the possession of large sums of money shouldn’t just look out for themselves and their own needs or wants at the time to make decisions on how to use their fortune, but instead, should try to use such resources for the benefit of all individuals of society. However, with this Andrew Carnegie didn’t mean that wealth was there to be distributed equally among all men. Instead, he believed that wealthy individuals were superior to the rest of the people and therefore, should be the ones managing surplus earnings since they had the experience and knowledge required which made them more fitted to do the job. According to Carnegie’s idea under this system based on principles and responsibilities, if everyone was to do their part of the job society will continue to experience

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.

The final area in which Andrew Carnegie was not a hero was Work Conditions because there was terrible work conditions for the workers

In the movie, The Richest Man in the World, Andrew Carnegie played a major role in influencing the Industrial Revolution, which changed the economy of the US and the world forever. This era brought upon significant changes through economic developments that would not only change the ways of the economy but also the social aspect of society, especially within the cities where this growth was located. The shift from hand-made to machine-made products increased productivity and decreased costs. Through the innovations of the new forms of energy, such as iron, and then steel, establishments of factories began, competition between businessmen arose, and innovations of transportation in the city through railroads and bridges developed. The