Description
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.
Weekly Topics
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.
Bibliography
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.
