Carnegie Mellon University

Andrew Carnegie, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and John D. Rockefeller are men of insight, innovation, and ingenuity. These are the men that started an age of advancement in steel, oil, and railroads within a time period of a few decades. Vanderbilt, a self-made man and cut-throat business man, owned the largest shipping empire in the world. He started with a single ferry which soon became a fleet of ships transporting goods and passengers throughout the country. He soon became known as the commodore.…

Andrew Carnegie (modern America might know him from Carnegie Hall in NYC) was one of the many business leaders in the 19th Century to utilize the laissez-faire system of capitalism to become wealthy. Carnegie may not be all that well known today, but he left behind two important ideas that would set in motion a chain of events across society: the Gospel of Wealth and Social Darwinism. The Gospel of Wealth a was a principle to which Carnegie invented and subscribed that stated, “People should be…

In late 19th century America, countless industrialists were accused of using unscrupulous or dishonest methods of hoarding wealth and building monopolies. Examples of these accused captains of industry include John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, and J.P. Morgan, nicknamed "Robber Barons." While many consumers and competitors were quick to attack these powerful businessmen, their primary interest was merely to build on the success of their companies, and reach their full potential. I believe…

America experienced a noticeable population growth with a lack of infrastructure that supported such growth causing quite the dilemma. Most Americans were working insane hours for low minimum wages just to take care of their families and get by. Andrew Carnegie was a man who believed that there was no middle ground, either you were very wealthy or you were poor. His drive to be successful and to make money led him to be viewed as someone who took advantage of the average American worker by…

Andrew Carnegie, a first-class American who netted millions of dollars in the late 1800s, encouraged and inspired wealthy citizens, through his essays, to donate money to charities, public service agencies, educational institutions, and more. In his entire lifetime, he accumulated more than 390 million dollars, which would amount to over four billion dollars today. Ninety percent of that was donated to charities and foundations, supporting over 2,500 libraries and hundreds of venues for concerts…

Andrew Carnegie Andrew Carnegie’s life embodies the true American rags to riches story. Andrew Carnegie was the son of a man with many struggles to find jobs. Due to his father’s struggles, Andrew Carnegie began to work at many different jobs; he worked in two factories before he found a stable job at a railroad company. Andrew Carnegie rose through the ranks at the company until becoming the secretary for the superintendent. His many trips to England brought his eye to steel which would later…

There are many ways to describe Andrew Carnegie such as self-made millionaire (billionaire in today’s terms) or philanthropist. However, one way in which most would not expect to describe Carnegie is as a firm believer in the estate tax. This may be due to the fact that many people do not know the definition of an estate tax or have no experience with it. An estate tax is defined as “a tax levied on the net value of the estate of a deceased person before distribution to the heirs.” However, an…

Social Conditions in “Meet You In Hell” Les Standiford’s 2005 “Meet You In Hell” biography of two men, Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick, recalls the events after and before the bloody incident that occurred on July of 1892. The incident involving the steelworkers and Pinkerton, so called detectives, from the steel manufacturing plant in Homestead Pennsylvania came to be known as “the deadliest clash between workers and owners in American labor history” (Standiford, 28). After the dust had…

of: Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, and J.P. Morgan. These three were some powerful individuals that helped the economy shoot up. Carnegie helped with steel, Rockefeller with oil, and Morgan with banking. They all were captains of industry in their own way and they all played a big role in revolutionizing the way things currently function. Although some of their methods weren’t great, the effects of their changes helped a ton of people and had many positive outcomes. Andrew Carnegie was…

Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, and J.P. Morgan are indeed “robber barons” because of the methods used to gain their wealth and to rise to the top. These men in power took control of all the natural resources, gained huge influence in the government, destroyed competing companies…