Was Andrew Carnegie a Hero?

Was Andrew Carnegie a hero?

"Thirty three and an income of $50,000 per annum. By this tie two years I can arrange all my business as to secure at least a $ 50,000 per annum. Beyond this never earn-make no effort to increase fortune but spend the surplus each year for benevolent purposes. Cast aside business forever except for others."

-Andrew Carnegie

Andrew Carnegie was born in November 1835, in an attic to an extremely poor family. He grew up in Dunfermline, Scotland but then moved to Pittsburgh with his family. He then spiked in the economic world, starting out with earning only $1.20 a week to earning $92,000 daily. What would you do with all of that money? How would you get from being poor to being one of the richest people alive? Would all of this be considered being a hero or a robber Barron?

Business practices are very important on the road to being successful because it shows how well thought out a person is, Andrew Carnegie was a very smart and wise man. Carnegie was a man who thought that if you work hard then you deserve the outcome no matter who you are. "Not evil, but good, has come to the race from accumulation of wealth by those who have the ability and energy to produce it." Organization is the key to a successful business and if it wasn't organized it wasn't good enough for Carnegie. Lowing prices was an amazing way to stay in business and keep customers coming back and that is exactly what Carnegie did. All the way from Minnesota mines to Pittsburgh mills Carnegie control all of it. Something called vertical integration is what helped keep him in business and keep prices low. To me this makes Andrew Carnegie a hero because he tried to help his customers by keeping prices low.

Work, Work, Work. The employees of Andrew Carnegie were sort of paid as well as they should have been but there working conditions were horrible. And all of this is true, Carnegie seem like he didn't really care about his workers. The homestead steel mill, owned by Andrew Carnegie, had two strikes before an article was written on it. The work place was very dangerous, "Everywhere in the boiler room plate mill were pits like the mouth if hell..." Average daily hours and wages in U.S. Manufacturing(1892) were paying somewhat more than Carnegie.