Andrew Carnegie and the Rise of Big Business essays

Andrew Carnegie and the Rise of Big Business essays This biography of Andrew Carnegie starts off focusing on his family's immigration to the United States of America and their reason for doing so. He was born in Scotland in 1835 and came to the United States in 1848. It then talks about his apprenticeships as both a manager and as a financier before going on to become one of the richest and most powerful businessmen in history. In 1865, established his own business enterprises and eventually organized the Carnegie Steel Company in Pittsburgh. The social and economic changes brought about by the Industrial Revolution allowed Carnegie to amass his fortune in the United States. He was ruthless in his cost-cutting endeavors, and he was willing to experiment with his new business methods that would increase production and profits. At age 65, he sold his company to J.P. Morgan for $480 million. At the beginning of the twentieth century, this Scotland native was one of the richest men in the world. He then devoted his life to philant hropic activities and writing. He gave away his fortune through numerous personal gifts and the establishment of various trusts. By the time he passed away in 1919, he had given away more than 350 million. Some of the book's primary sources include the Carnegie papers in the Library of Congress, Joseph Frazier Wall's book Andrew Carnegie, Burton J. Hendrick's The Life of Andrew Carnegie, and James Howard Bridge's book The Inside History of the Carnegie Steel Company. These three books gave the author good material to work with because they each have some insight either first hand or through Carnegie's friends. The book's secondary sources include F.C. Mather's book Public Order in the Age of the Chartists, George Rogers Taylor's book The Transportation Revolution 1815-1860, and Edward C. Kirkland's Industry Comes of Age. These books give the author some insight of the economy during Carnegie's era and the history of m ...