Andrew Carnegie

Andrew Carnegie

Andrew Carnegie helped to develop the American economy. He made

a company that was in the Dow Jones industrials. He introduced the

Bessemer method of steel production to the United States. Think what could

have happened without his companies existence, who would have produced

steel for transcontinental railroads, the weapons that protect our country

against communist threats. Carnegie was not actually native born though, he

was born in Scotland and moved to the states at the age of 13. Carnegie had

no formal education but quickly learned that the land of opportunity.

Contained the opportunity to exploit the workers who made up his adopted

country.

He like Rockefeller and Morgan bought their way out of army duty by

paying a $300 fee. In 1872 after seeing the Bessemer process in England he

returned to the U.S. and built a multi-million dollar steel mill. His business

was allowed to survive because the government put in place a number of

laws that would make steel made in other countries more expensive. No book

said exactly how these laws were put in place, but I can imagine that the

goodwill of politicians can be bought. In 1880 of production Carnegie made

1.5 million dollars a year in profits, twenty years later it was $40 million per

year. This at the expense of men having to work twelve hours a day.

While this point was not made in the books I possessed, I know that Steel

plants are not the best to work in from a health standpoint.