Andrew Carnegie Research Paper

Rising from rags to riches gaining a lot of power and making immense amounts of money was the successful story and life of Andrew Carnegie. Born on November 25th, 1835 in Dunfermline, Scotland , Andrew Carnegie was born into poor family of a mother who was a shoe maker and tanner and a father who was a handloom weaver . Immigrating to the United States in the May of 1848 , Andrew Carnegie started a whole new life there. “The Carnegies’ passage was relatively uneventful and mercifully short—there seems to have been no ship fever, cholera, or typhus… on board.” When reaching to the United States growing up in near Pittsburgh, and later on working in the Pennsylvania Railroad company in his later years is where the great rise of money and power
With more advancements in making investments such as investing into oil and other companies in 1861, Andrew Carnegie finally decides to open his first steel called Edgar Thomson Works in 1875 . By using the methods of vertical integration, Andrew Carnegie starts to buy off every aspect of the steel industry to a point where he has no more competitors. In 1899, Andrew Carnegie forms Carnegie Steel by merging all the previously owned steel companies .Selling Carnegie Steel to J.P. Morgan in 1901, Andrew Carnegie becomes the richest man in the world . Carnegie began his philanthropic work in the earlier years by building a lot of libraries and making massive amounts of donations, he also carried on that work towards the beginning of the 20th century . And on the 11th of August of 1919, Andrew Carnegie dies in Lenox, Massachusetts. Although it may seem like the perfect success story, there is more than what meets the eye. An individual is judged by their qualities and the different actions they take which also distinguishes them from others to become the seamless role
Wages were the only incentive for the workers to keep working in the Carnegie steel mills. 14000 common laborers worked in Carnegie’s mills around in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and they all received a weekly wage of $12.50. Considering that a weekly wage of $15 was needed to support a family for barely making it through the week. This was way to low to start out with but since workers were desperate and Carnegie only focused on making money, this worked somehow. Since Frick joined up with Carnegie to run some aspects of the company, they both focused immediately on wage cuts, and decided on an 18%-26% wage cut. After the tax cut they both focused on putting down unions. With both plans set, the workers would have no choice but to accept what they have. Since the wage cut would rise some strikes and unions would form in order to raise the wages again, busting down all the unions would take away any problems. The ultimate goal for Carnegie was to put as little effort and money for the workers, and focus on the bigger picture of making steel and