Andrew
Carnegie, the son of a handloom weaver,
was born in Dunfermline, Scotland,
on 25th November, 1835. The family had a long radical tradition and
his father, William Carnegie, was an active Chartist.
His material grandfather, Thomas Morrison, had worked with William
Cobbett during his campaign for social reform.
The economic depression of 1848 convinced the Carnegie family to emigrate
to the United States where they joined a Scottish colony at Allegheny
near Pittsburgh. Andrew began work
at 12 in a local cotton factory but continued his education by attending
night school.
At 14 Carnegie became a messenger boy in the local Pittsburgh Telegraph
Office. His abilities were noticed by Thomas A. Scott, the superintendent
of the western division of the Pennsylvania Railroad. He made Carnegie
his secretary. During the Civil War
Scott was appointed assistant secretary of war and Carnegie went to
Washington to work as his right-hand
man. Carnegie's work included organizing the military telegraph system.
After the war Carnegie succeeded Scott as superintendent of the western
division of the Pennsylvania Railroad. Carnegie shrewdly invested
in several promising ventures including the Woodruff Sleeping Car
Company and several small iron mills and factories. The most important
of these was Keystone Bridge, a company which he owned a one-fifth
share.
Carnegie made regular visits to Britain where he observed the rapid
developments in the iron industry. He was especially impressed by
the converter invented by Henry Bessemer.
Carnegie realised that steel would now replace iron for the manufacture
of heavy goods.
In 1870 Carnegie erected his first blast furnace where he used the
ideas being developed by Bessemer in England. Others followed and
by 1874 he opened his steel furnace at Braddock. He took several partners,
including Henry Frick, but he always insisted
in retaining the majority holding in his various ventures.
Carnegie took a keen interest in social and political issues and wrote
a series of books including Round the World (1881), An American
Four-in-Hand in Britain (1883) and Triumphant Democracy
(1886), where he compared the egalitarianism of America with the class-based
inequalities of Britain and other European countries. He praised America's
educational system arguing that: "Of all its boasts, of all its
triumphs, this is at once its proudest and its best."
In June, 1889, the North American Review published an article
by Carnegie on what he called the "Gospel of Wealth". In
the article Carnegie argued that it was the duty of rich men and women
to use their wealth to benefit the welfare of the community. He wrote
that a "man who dies rich dies disgraced".
In 1889 Carnegie decided to allow Henry Frick
to become chairman of the Carnegie Companywhile he moved to New York
to deal with the growing importance of research and development. Carnegie
also spent six months of the year in Scotland with his family.
When Frick took control the firm consisted of various mills and furnaces
in the Pittsburgh area. Frick was
concerned that there was no centralized management structure and so
in 1892 all productive units were integrated to form the Carnegie
Steel Company. Valued at $25 million it was now the largest steel
company in the world.
In an effort to increase profits, Henry Frick
decided to lower the piecework wage rate of his employees. In 1892
the Amalgamated Iron and Steel Workers Union called out its members
at the Carnegie's Homestead plant. Frick now took the controversial
decision to employ 300 strikebreakers from outside the area. The men
were brought in on armed barges down the Monongahela River. The strikers
were waiting for them and a day long battle took place. Ten men were
killed and 60 wounded before the governor obtained order by placing
Homestead under martial law.
Carnegie, who was in Scotland during the strike, was furious with
Frick as he had instructed him not to use strikebreakers. In public
Carnegie did not criticize Frick and as a result had to take responsibility
for what had happened. He later wrote: "I was the controlling
owner. That was sufficient to make my name a by-word for years".
The Carnegie Steel Company continued to expand and between 1889 and
1899 annual production of steel rose from 332,111 to 2,663,412 tons,
and profits increased from $2 million to $40 million. There was growing
conflict between Carnegie and Henry Frick
during this period. This came to a head in 1899 and Carnegie bought
out Frick for $15 million.
In 1901 Frick joined with J. Pierpont Morgan
to purchase the Carnegie Company for $500,000,000 and established
the U.S. Steel Corporation that was valued at $1.4 billion. Carnegie
himself now had a personal fortune of $225,000,000.
Carnegie set up a trust fund "for the improvement of mankind."
This included the building of 3,000 public libraries (380 in Britain),
the Carnegie Institute of Pittsburgh, the Carnegie Institute of Technology
and the Carnegie Institution of Washington for research into the natural
and physical sciences. Carnegie also established the Endowment for
International Peace in an effort to prevent future wars.
By the time Andrew Carnegie died in August, 1919, he had given away
$350,000,000. A further $125 million was placed with the Carnegie
Corporation to carry on his good works.
Robert
Minor, St Louis Post-Dispatch
(1908)
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