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How Did Andrew Carnegie's Impact On American Society

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During the mid-nineteenth century, two symbolic icons of industrial growth and entrepreneurial finesse, Andrew Carnegie – who built an enormous steel corporation, and John D. Rockefeller – creator of Standard Oil, both dominated their respective industries and impacted American society in terms of supplying necessary goods like steel and petroleum, employment opportunity, philanthropic causes which set precedents not only for significant strides of government oversight on big business, but also toward fair labor practices.
Andrew Carnegie, a poor Scottish immigrant at the age of 12 in 1848, wasted little time engaging his talent for success. Beginning as a bobbin boy in a textile mill, he moved on to become the fastest Western Union telegraph …show more content…

While oppressing the laborer, Carnegie capitalized on the respect of American society through investment in philanthropic activity. In his lifetime, Carnegie donated more than $300 million to “libraries, universities, and international peace causes” (504). Carnegie continued his philanthropy, but concluded his monopoly in 1901 by selling to financier J.P. Morgan, who ultimately established the United States Steel Corporation. A second icon of industrialized America, John D. Rockefeller, built his own conglomerate, cementing his name, and legacy in …show more content…

Rockefeller set up “pools” of multiple businesses that fixed prices and production quotas, and by 1879, had seized 90% of the oil refining capacity. He established the Standard Oil Trust in 1882 creating an umbrella company which controlled forty oil companies, and an arrangement of stockholders who held trust certificates. Through this absorption and cooperative management of rival companies, Rockefeller controlled the petroleum industry horizontally as well as vertically through control of costs and

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