Thousands of men contributed to the
development of the Industrial Revolution in the United States. I have chosen to submit a proposal on the life of one of
these men, Andrew Carnegie, for one reason: the attitude of Carnegie to the
wealth he had acquired. Carnegie
believed that the money he accumulated was not really his—it belonged to the
community, and he was just holding it for the community. It was therefore his obligation to give his
fortune back to the community and to do so during his lifetime. To my knowledge, no other major American
philanthropist, from the founding of the republic to this day, held such a
belief. Such a man is worth studying.
When Carnegie
sold Carnegie Steel to a syndicate headed by J. P. Morgan in 1901 and received
$225 million (and became at the time America’s richest man), he realized that
it was not possible to give away the money during his lifetime. By this time he had a large organization
devoted to founding and supporting libraries, so that he had time to pursue
other avenues of interest. Promoting
world peace became his primary goal, to which end he established several
trusts. The Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace, among others, remains active to this day.
Carnegie Mellon University and Carnegie Hall bear his
name (as does a major avenue in my hometown of Cleveland, Ohio).
David Nasaw has written a
comprehensive biography, called simply Andrew Carnegie (2006). It covers all aspects of his life including
his young years as a telegrapher, his growth into one of the leading
industrialists of the country, and his development into one of the country’s
leading philanthropists. We will read
about his involvement in the infamous Homestead Steel Strike as well as
possible partial responsibility for the Johnstown Flood. At the time of the Spanish-American War he
became one of the country’s leading anti-imperialists (along with his exact
contemporary, Mark Twain). His
attachment to the United Kingdom and, particularly, his native Scotland are
well covered, are as his many well-regarded books and articles, mainly on
wealth and peace.
The book is 801 pages, so we will be
reading about fifty-seven pages a week, a reasonable amount for a dense
biography. We won’t have to worry about
not having enough to talk about every week.
Most of the
thirty-five S/DGs I have coordinated have had core books. I was always hoping to find one with the
number of chapters divisible by fourteen.
I never did—until now. Andrew
Carnegie has forty-two chapters, each near enough equal in length so that we
will read three chapters a week, from chapters 1-3 in Week 1 to chapters 40-42
in Week 14.
No additional
reading is required beyond the core book.
It is my experience in recent years
that most Plato members are really good at finding and recommending on-line
material to supplement the weekly reading. For one source, the Wikipedia article on
Andrew Carnegie has dozens of links to various aspects of his life.
Anyone wanting comprehensive
background material for the period that covers most of Carnegie’s career can
read the appropriate volume in the Oxford History of the United States. It is The Republic for Which It Stands—The
United States During Reconstruction and the Gilded Age, 1865-1896 by
Richard White.