ANDREW CARNEGIE: FRIEND OR FOE OF LABOR
ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY: SUMMARIES
FOR
TERM PAPER:
By
Marjorie A. Renick
1. Carnegie, Andrew. Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie.
Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1920.
Andrew writes a very readable book. His style is direct, interesting, and he covers all the events of his life. Naturally, it only presents his point of view as he portrays himself as being a good son of his mother and of Scotland as well as an intelligent hard working student of the intellectual and business world. We learn his philosophy in how he lived and by what he wrote. I believe that this book should be read first when researching Carnegie. Using this autobiography as a basis, you can than judge and compare all the subsequent biographies and editorials you read.
Excerpt: Andrew Carnegie. “I knew nothing of the base and vile. I had always been brought in contact with good people. This was the world in which I dwelt with my companions, all of them refined young men, striving to improve themselves and become respected citizens” (65).
2. American Experience. ANDREW CARNEGIE the Richest
Man in the World. PBS Documentary. PBS/WGS, 1999. April 14, 2003.
< http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carnegie/ >This site contains a condensation of every book included in my Annotated Bibliography. Each page discusses a different facet in the character, personality, and life of Andrew Carnegie. It is well written and has incorporated the research and writings of many authors. The written material covers the script used in this production includes all phases of Carnegie’s life. It is divided into readable paragraphs and is augmented with pictures. Each chapter discusses a different aspect of Carnegie’s life and philosophy. It also covers the Homestead strike and people who influenced his thinking.
Site analysis.
The site has developed pages whose titles adequately indicate the type of information that each page contains. Embedded in the written material are pictures that illustrate the relevant data. The writing is bordered by a wide space on each side and gives the writing and the pictures a clarity of presentation. Each paragraph is divided by wide spacing and the content is condensed for easy reading. At the bottom of each page is a link to all previous pages and to the next pages. This saves you time and effort when doing research.
Excerpt: “Carnegie was unusual among the industrial captains of his day because he preached for the rights of laborers to unionize and to protect their jobs. However, Carnegie’s actions did not always match his rhetoric. Carnegie’s steel workers were often pushed to long hours and low wages.”
3. Baker, James T. ANDREW CARNEGIE Robber Baron
as American Hero. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2003.
This author first summarizes and then brings in other literary writers and historians to give their view of the presentation. Thus you have all in one book many different points of view. The authors are either well known for their previous writing on Carnegie or for comparing the rags to riches stories with people like Trump and Gates.
Excerpt: Joseph Wall, “Carnegie’s most exhaustive biographer, explains Carnegie’s attitudes more as a result of “arrested development” than of hypocrisy. Carnegie left Scotland before systematic doctrines of economic reform such as socialism came into public consciousness. …Americans had long since attained these goals and Carnegie “looked no further into the meaning of liberalism.”…he defended the American system so vigorously because its triumph was his own triumph; it virtues were his virtues, and it s success justified his wealth and the ways he acquired it. Attacks on the system attacked him” (39).
4. Demarest, David P. Jr., ed. “The River Ran Red”
Homestead 1892. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh
Press, 1992.
This book contains all primary source information. Here is the actual print reproduced from newspapers, magazines, essays and research written at the time of the Homestead strike. This information forms the basic data from which many biographers gathered their facts regarding the strike at Carnegie’s Homestead steel mill.
Excerpt: “July 6-8—According to the Pittsburgh Commercial Gazette, nine Homestead workers and five Pinkertons were killed in the battle, or were ‘fatally injured.’ Months later in Homestead, Arthur Brugoyne states that making a list of the dead has proved a ‘difficult matter.’ He defers to the coroner’s record: seven workers, three Pinkertons”(126).
5. Hendrick, Burton. The Life of Andrew Carnegie. Volume 1
and 11, New York: Doubleday, 1932.
This is a two-volume work written with access to many of Carnegie’s personal papers, and with the consent and co-operation of Mrs. Carnegie. The author was also able to interview many of Carnegie’s business associates and thus you have the full flavor of Carnegie’s personality. It is a very extensive work and is complete in every way. While you would expect that he would present only the best of Carnegie, I found it to be a very balanced work. He presents many different aspects of Carnegie’s personality, his viewpoints, and his actions.
Excerpt: “Carnegie; ‘but as my appearance on the scene would have implied Mr. Frick’s virtual deposition and he had begged me not to do this, I remained abroad.’…..this remained Carnegie’s position to the end. His views on the only sensible way to treat striking workmen had been expressed in his ‘forum’ article of 1886 and never changed…’We would talk matters over and give and take, always keeping our old men, for manufacturers never need employ new ones’”(413).
6. Jones, Jacqueline, et al. Created Equal. New York:
Longman, 2003.
This is a college course history book that is written to bring into focus all the various peoples in America who contributed to its greatness but have never been recognized. The many themes and chapters are attempts to bring into our sphere of knowledge the truth regarding those peoples created equal but never treated as such. The authors exam the role of the great industrialists, their relationship with the working class, conditions in the industries and the Homestead strike at Carnegie’s steel mill.
Excerpt: “Categories of race pitted various groups, native born and immigrant, against one another. Some employers exploited the vulnerability of workers in this era of rising prices (1890). . . in 1892 steel magnate Andrew Carnegie and his company chairman Henry Clay Frick launched an all-out assault on the Amalgamated Iron, Steel and Tin Workers, a craft union affiliated with the AFL”(618).
7. Livesay, Harold. Andrew Carnegie and the Rise of Big
Business. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1975.
Livesay takes you through Carnegie’s ability to invest, manage, decide, build and become the wealthiest man in the world. Livesay also has quite a bit of input as to what he thought contributed to the many facets of Carnegie’s personality. The book is divided into short readable and interesting chapters on the history of the iron, steel, coke/coal, and financial assets that Carnegie bought, managed and developed.
Excerpt: “. . . the swiftness with which Carnegie grasped this opportunity [to become a telegraph employee] demonstrated his ability to recognize the potential of a new service or product and to seize upon an auspicious moment to associate himself with it. Time and again he manifested this acumen, shifting his talents from factory to telegraph, from telegraph to railroad, from railroad to iron and then steel, meanwhile investing his money in express companies, oil fields, sleeping cars, and telegraphs before he finally fused his energies and capital in Carnegie Steel” (19).
8. Meltzer, Milton. The Many Lives of Andrew Carnegie. New
York: Franklin Watts, 1997.
This is a well written easy to read balanced biography of Andrew Carnegie. This author gives you as many bad sides of Carnegie’s character as he gives you good sides. He delves into the why of Carnegie and gives us reasons he believes Carnegie thought and acted in often so many diverse ways. His presentations of Carnegie’s writings, which portray Carnegie’s deep affection for the workingman, are balanced with the portrayal of Carnegie’s subsequent actions. The author’s title aptly describes what he was trying to present to us the readers.
Excerpt: Harold Livesay. “Carnegie Steel bore his name and it had a mission in Carnegie’s life. He. . . sought a haven of rest, but his business was the only vessel that could take him there. There was so much to make up for: the failure of his father; the ignominious flight from poverty; the people ground and fed to his insatiable ambition . . . the lies to get contracts; the brutality to make them pay; the greed and trickery; and Homestead, always there was Homestead. But he could make up for it with all the wealth and power which his company, his ‘concern’ as he often called it, could bring him. It was the instrument of atonement, clean and hard and pure as American steel and the fire that made it” (116).
9. Ohio State Education Project. “Homestead: The
Households of a Mill town”. Volume 4 of the
Pittsburgh Survey, 1910; pages 171-172, from the
chapter titled "The Mill and the Household." Page
created by Patrick J. Hall. May 3, 2003.
< http://www.history.ohio-state.edu/projects/PittsburghSurvey/Homestead/household.htm >
The information on this site is a part of the 1910 Pittsburgh Survey which sent interviewers into Homestead to record the living conditions of the workers. This site contains all primary source material and therefore can be relied upon to reflect the truth regarding the size of quarters, furniture used, the number of people who lived in each unit, and the cost of the housing. The report included data on the availability of water, sewage, electricity and fuel sources.
The site is made up of writing on plain white paper with typing that extends across the entire page. There are no background colors, no borders, and no variation in text styles except for the title. It is certainly not cluttered with pictures or graphic embellishments. The pages are freestanding and each one describes a different phase of the Homestead living conditions. There is only a link back to the your previous page and no internal links to other related pages. The site was created by the Ohio State History project and is valuable for the date supplied. I chose this page to exemplify all that I found unappealing to the eye. Although the material was pertinent to my Writing 316 paper the site itself has no attractive qualities.
Excerpt: “No money was expended for furniture; a fact borne out by the utter barrenness of the two-room homes of many of the laborers.”
10. Swetnam, George. The Carnegie Nobody Knows. USA:
McDonald/Sward, 1980.
The author presents to us “Carnegie the Writer”. He believes that Carnegie’s reputation, as a writer should equal his reputation as a great industrialist. In this volume, you will find almost all of Carnegie’s writing except for two of his books. The author places the essays in the context of their time, place and happenings. It is very helpful to have all the writings in one book. This allows you to get a grasp of Carnegie’s many different opinions and the prodigious amount of writings he accomplished during his lifetime.
Excerpt: “Even on its merits alone, Carnegie’s writing is worthy of a wider attention and acceptance than is accorded today. His style is crisp and attractive, and despite a tendency to moralize, was far better than the average American writing of its period. He avoided the artificiality and flights of fancy so common in that day: substituting plain fact and clear reasoning. Perhaps most important of all, he helped to frame and promote the American dream. He also, regrettably, forced businessmen who lacked his facility at expression to invent and foist on the public a new mouthpiece-the ghostwriter” (Foreword).
11. Swogger, Michael. “Andrew Carnegie: Evaluating a Capitalist Icon.”
Published Jan. 25, 2003. Suite101.com - Creative Marketeam Canada Ltd.,
1996 - 2003. April 14, 2003.
<http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/14127/98046>
Our school children have learned from many writers about the large amount of money Carnegie donated for the establishment of libraries, research centers, cultural centers, and the promotion of peace. He has also been held up as an example of the "rags to riches” dream. This author questions if we have the right to deify the rich and the famous. Shouldn’t we also be teaching our children about their many faults and failures?
Excerpt: “This proclivity to virtually deify historical figures is natural but is very dangerous-such elevation also tends to forgive or even justify the sins of such individuals, regardless of how terrible those sins may have been.”
12. Trachtenberg Alan. The Incorporation of America;
Culture and Society in the Gilded Age. New York: Hill and Wang, 1987.
This book is an overview of the culture in America during the approximate time period of 1870 to 1900. The author interrelates the different aspects of life and with what influenced the people at that time. His coverage of mechanization, capitol, and labor were issues that I could use in my study of working conditions and labor relations during this period of history.
Excerpt: “Moreover, hardships were exacerbated by periods of high unemployment (as much as 16%) during the depressions of the mid-1870’s and the mid-1880’s.. . . This is not to speak of the substandard conditions beyond the home, such as schooling, sewer, water, and lighting in working class neighborhoods.. . .Hazards to health and to life itself were common in heavy-metal industries…Workmen’s compensation did not appear until the 1930’s, ….When we take into account the heat and danger from molten steel at open hearths, the threats of cave-ins and toxic gases in coal mines, the danger to fingers and limbs in all kinds of machines with unguarded moving parts—a picture emerges of mechanized violence inherent in the industrial work place….The image of machinery as “labor saving” held a bitter irony for workers:. . . not only did they increasingly threaten the usefulness of craft skills, but, employed by capital to increase productivity as rapidly as possible, they often increased the amount of physical exertion over time” (91).
13. Yellen, Samuel. American Labor Struggles. New York:
Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1936.
Yellen's book encompasses all the great labor strikes in America from 1877 to 1934. The chapter on the Homestead strike at Carnegie Steel is presented in great detail. The author divides the chapter into sections by number and headings. This makes for easier assimilation and better understanding of the whole story.
Excerpt: “The earnings of the miners exceeded those of the steel laborers by two full days’ pay a week. While the workmen in the steel industry sank into a state of slavery, the Carnegie Steel Company grew rapidly, accumulated more and more wealth, transformed itself into the United States Steel Corporation, and with its monopoly on steel productions, established itself at the very heart of American capitalism” (100).
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