Rockefeller and Carnegie

In the mid to late 1800s, John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie became two of the most successful men of their time. These two controlled the market in oil and steel, respectively, by gaining a monopoly over the market. In class, we spent the week watching videos on Rockefeller and Carnegie's lives and reading documents about them. We then split ourselves into groups and analyzed specific aspects of each mans life.

One of the main questions asked was how monopolistic leaders, like Carnegie and Rockefeller, affected the lives of the common worker. Each man affected the men who worked for them both negatively and positively.The way they accumulated such large companies was through buying out their competitors, and if they did not comply they would run the companies out of business. As ruthless as this is, it got them to the top, dominating the economy of their product. Causing so many businesses to go out greatly affected the working force in a negative way: so many workers were unemployed. This caused Rockefeller and Carnegie to be called "Robber-barons", or very corrupt company officials that bribed and cheated their way to the top. This was supported in the fact that Rockefeller, for example, bought out all the competition. While there was no more competition, Standard Oil, Rockefeller's company, had nobody to try and compete with, thus bettering the economy. However, it did put many people out of work.

Andrew Carnegie also had a good and bad side when coming to public criticism. Like Rockefeller, he also had a monopoly, but his was over the steel industry. Carnegie was born in Scotland and immigrated to America. Here he became a very successful steel company owner. He made a huge profit of money from the business, but then came the famous Homestead Strike. When profits skyrocketed for Carnegie Steel, but workers were given just a puny salary increase. This lead to strikes and protests outside the mill. Carnegie traveled to Scotland on vacation, and ordered his partner Clay Frick to close the mill. Frick did not, and instead brought in strikebreakers and Pinkerton guards to protect the. This resulted in a bloody fight, and ultimately the Pennsylvania militia was sent in to lessen the conflict. While this negatively impacted Carnegie's reputation among the workers, he did give away over $300 million to various charities towards the end of his life.

While both men seemed at first glance greedy, power hungry businessmen who only wanted the money for themselves, but did do good things for workers and other various causes. However, the amount of donations given to outside causes outweighs the hate that was given towards the two, which may have also been caused by jealousy for their wealth.